In 1967, the Common Council of the City of London placed the bridge on the market and began to look for potential buyers. Council member Ivan Luckin had put forward the idea of selling the bridge, and recalled, "They all thought I was completely crazy when I suggested we should sell London Bridge when it needed replacing." On April 18, 1968, Rennie's bridge was sold to the Missourian entrepreneur Robert P. McCulloch of McCulloch Oil for $2,460,000. The claim that McCulloch believed mistakenly that he was buying the more impressive Tower Bridge was denied by Luckin in a newspaper interview. As the bridge was taken apart, each piece was numbered to aid re-assembly. The bridge was reconstructed at Lake Havasu City, Arizona, and re-dedicated on October 10, 1971. The reconstruction of Rennie's London Bridge spans the Bridgewater Channel canal that leads from Lake Havasu to Thomson Bay, and forms the centerpiece of a theme park in English style, complete with a Tudor period shopping mall. Rennie's London Bridge has become Arizona's second biggest tourist attraction, after the Grand Canyon.

The version of London Bridge that was rebuilt at Lake Havasu consists of a concrete frame with stones from Rennie's London Bridge used as cladding. The cladding stones used are 150 to 200 millimetres (6 to 8 inches) thick. The remaining stone was left at Merrivale Quarry at Princetown in Devon. When Merrivale Quarry was abandoned and flooded in 2003, some of the remaining stone was sold in an online auction.



For the true London Bridge in London, England; A bridge has existed at or near the present site over the period from the Roman occupation of the area, nearly 2,000 years ago. The first bridge across the Thames in the London area, probably a military pontoon bridge, was built of wood by the Romans on the present site around 50 AD. To learn more about London Bridge, go to Wikipedia.