The place file / Freshwater Salty
Lake Havasu City,
Arizona
In 1968 a chainsaw maker bought London Bridge for US$2,460,000.
He rebuilt it in the desert and then dug a channel for it to cross.
Salty Seniors place guide
Could I live here?The draw
Nineteen degrees in January
The catch
Forty-four degrees in July
The question
Snowbird, or all twelve months?
London Bridge is in Arizona
Robert McCulloch made chainsaws and outboard motors, and in the early 1960s he wanted somewhere to test the motors. He found a reservoir on the Colorado River, bought 67 square kilometres of desert beside it and laid out a city.
Then he had to persuade people to live there. From 1964 he flew prospective buyers in for free. There were 2,702 flights.
It still needed an attraction. In 1968 the City of London was selling a bridge that was sinking into the Thames. McCulloch bid US$2,460,000 and won.
The stones were numbered, shipped through the Panama Canal and trucked across the desert. The bridge was rebuilt on dry land around a concrete frame and reopened on October 10, 1971. Then a channel was dug underneath it and filled with water.
The story that he thought he was buying Tower Bridge is not true. He let it run, because it was good for business.
It worked. About 57,000 people live here now, on a lake, in a desert, beside a bridge from 1831.
The city has 28 working lighthouses, more than any other in the United States. It is in the desert.
What stays open year-round?
Everything. This is a city of 57,000 with big-box stores, a hospital and a great many boat dealers, not a resort that shuts. It is busiest in winter, when the snowbirds arrive, and again at spring break. Summer is the quiet season, and there is a reason.
What will summer ask of you?
Air conditioning, and respect. The average July afternoon is about 44°C. Arizona’s all-time record was set here, 53°C on June 29, 1994. People run errands at dawn, stay indoors or in the lake, and treat a broken air conditioner as an emergency. A good many leave in May and come back in October.
How close is the care you need?
Havasu Regional Medical Center is in town, with 171 beds and an emergency room. For major trauma or anything highly specialised you are looking at Las Vegas, about 240 km north, or Phoenix, about 320 km southeast. Check which of your doctors a move would actually replace.
Could you live without a car?
No. The city was laid out in the 1960s for people arriving by car, on long curving streets up a desert slope, and it works exactly that way. Nothing is close to anything. The nearest big airport is Las Vegas, about two and a half hours away.
What does a house cost?
The median sale was about US$475,000 in the summer of 2026. Most of the city is single-storey houses, often with a garage big enough for a boat, which is the local priority. The median age is 56.6, so you will not be the only one asking these questions. Budget for the electricity bill in July.
Coming from Canada?
You will have company. More than 80,000 snowbirds winter in this county every year. Canadians can generally stay up to six months in any twelve as visitors. If you cross by land and stay 30 days or more, you now have to register with the U.S. government, unless you were given an I-94 at the border.
