Arizona -- London Bridge Is A Bit Of Britain In The Desert

"London Bridge is falling down, falling down, falling down; London Bridge is falling down, my fair lady." --------------------------------

LAKE HAVASU CITY, ARIZ. - No, your eyes do not deceive.

Here, in the middle of the Arizona desert, is London Bridge - the London Bridge, the one that's falling down in the famous children's song.

What's more, right next to it is an English Village, complete with Tudor architecture, red telephone booths and stores called "shoppes," and a mile up from the bridge is Shambles Village, another shopping area that replicates England's medieval Shambles of York.

It's no mirage. The real London Bridge really does stand in the Arizona desert, its majestic arches spanning a channel of the Colorado River and spawning a spate of Brit-mania.

Incongruous? You bet.

Attention-getting? That's the whole idea.

Bringing the bridge to Arizona was the idea of an entrepreneur named Robert P. McCulloch, who needed a bridge but also knew the value of publicity.

Transplanting the famous London Bridge to the Arizona desert, he figured, would not only raise eyebrows around the world but also attract tourists.

That's exactly what happened.

Before London Bridge was moved from the British capital to the banks of the Colorado in 1969-1971, Lake Havasu was just a wide spot in the dammed river.

There was no city here, just an idea in the mind of McCulloch, who had bought land here in the early 1960s to set up a motor testing site for his chain-saw business.

By 1968, visitors had started coming here to enjoy the lake, so McCullock decided to dredge a channel through a peninsula to create better water flow. A bridge would have to span that channel.

Coincidentally, London's town fathers had decided to replace the venerable London Bridge, built in 1831, because it was not only too narrow for modern traffic but also because it was slowly sinking into the unstable clay of the Thames River. They put the bridge up for sale.

McCulloch and his partners submitted the winning bid of $2,460,000. Total cost, including shipping and reassembly, was $7.5 million.

It took three years to cut apart and label the 10,000 granite stones of the bridge and reassemble them here. The structure was put together on land; the channel it now spans was dredged after it was completed.

The reconstructed bridge has the same outward appearance as the original, from its five arches and bronze light standards to the shrapnel marks left by German bombs in World War II.

The few structural differences that exist are not noticeable. Inside, it has a hollow, reinforced concrete core for stability, and its approaches are shorter.

Like the original, this is a working bridge, serving the motels and other facilities on the Island, as the former Pittsburgh Point peninsula is now known.

Reinforcing the English look at the bridge's foot is the Tudor-style Ramada London Bridge Resort and English Village, whose stores have names like Queen's Pantry, Ye Olde Curiosity Shoppe and Port O' London Boutique.

All the buildings are done in Tudor style, though some of it could be called tacky Tudor.

The City of London itself, incidentally, owns an English pub and gift shop in the English Village. The Ramada hotel, a focal point of activity, has in its lobby a full-scale gold-painted replica of Britain's Gold State Coach, which is used for coronations.

To this ersatz British enclave come thousands of tourists, mostly from California and Arizona. In winter, it's easy to see why. The weather is pleasant and the scenery spectacular.

In summertime, one has to wonder what the attraction is, considering that the temperature on the day I visited in mid-July hit 116 degrees.

"It's the lake," said Elrose M. Dussault, a spokesperson for the Ramada, which was filled to capacity that day despite the heat.

"People come to go fishing, boating and swimming."

Visitors can go water-skiing on the 45-mile-long lake, rent boats or take river tours through scenic Topock Gorge.

They can loll around hotel pools (the Ramada's pool deck areas are cooled by sprays of mist) or go rock-hunting and explore ghost towns in the desert. Shuttles run to the casinos in nearby Laughlin, Nev., the fast-growing rival to Las Vegas.

In the 21 years since the bridge opened in 1971, the Lake Havasu area has grown to be Arizona's second-biggest tourist attraction, after the Grand Canyon.

Some light industry has moved to the city, which now has more than 1,000 business establishments and accommodations for several thousand visitors.

Ironically, London Bridge has brought so much business here that the city now is considering building another bridge because of growing traffic to the Island.

Maybe London has another old bridge it wants to get rid of.

--------------------------------- MORE INFORMATION ---------------------------------

-- For information on visiting Arizona, contact the Arizona Office of Tourism, 1-800-247-4000.