Book description
In 1968 the world's largest antique went to America.
But how do you transport a 130-year-old bridge 3,000 miles?
And why did Robert P. McCulloch, a multimillionaire oil baron and
chainsaw-manufacturing king, buy it?
Why did he ship it to a waterless patch of the Arizonan desert?
Did he even get the right bridge?
To answer these questions, it's necessary to meet a peculiar cast.
Fleet Street shysters · Revolutionary Radicals · Frock-coated
industrialists · Disneyland designers · Thames dockers · Guinness
Book of Records officials · The odd Lord Mayor · Bridge-building
priests · Gun-toting U. S. sheriffs · An Apache Indian or two
And a fraudster whose greatest trick was to convince the world he
ever existed
Roll up, then, for the story of one of the strangest events in
Anglo-American relations. Curious, clever and sharp, this is history
to delight in.
Travis Elborough is the author of three acclaimed books,
The Bus
We Loved
,
a history of the Routemaster bus;
The Long Player Goodbye
, which lamented the passing of vinyl; and
Wish You Were Here
, a history of the British beside the sea.
He regularly appears on Radio 4 and writes for the
Guardian
.
