Chapter I
The Arizona Desert
The capacity of overcoming and of persistence of the human being sometimes takes surrealist contours due to the result that is reached, and nothing more appropriate to exemplify this concept, than the history behind the sale of the London Bridge by the London City Council in the decade of 1960.
In the distant desert of Arizona in the United States, in the 1960’s, began our story of a man who despite his exploits in the escalation of the new industrial revolution of the early twentieth century, will always be remembered as the man who acquired the greatest piece of antiquity in history, a real Bridge!
Robert Paxton McCulloch, was born on May 11, 1911, son of Richard McCulloch and Mary Grace Beggs. His grandfather, John Beggs, made his fortune installing Thomas Edson power plants in various locations around the world, in addition to manufacturing electric trolleys. Robert McCulloch and his two brothers inherited Grandfather’s fortune in 1925.
McCulloch received his engineering degree and his first company was Engineering Company in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, his native land. There, he also built car engines and with 30 years old, McCulloch sold the company and started the McCulloch Aviation.
In 1946, at the age of 35, he was looking for other business to install a new factory, and as his brothers had partnered with Ralph Evinrude in the manufacture of small gasoline engines for boats, and then McCulloch discovered a new market, the portable saws that came to revolutionize that market, where anyone could use it only to cut trees or ice from lakes and rivers.
In 1950 McCulloch started the McCulloch Oil Corporation to explore oil and gas, land development and thermal energy. Despite Evinrude’s leadership in the boat engine market, McCulloch still wanted to grab a part of that business, which took him to the place where started this history that put his name in the history.
The decade of the 60s just began, and the state of Arizona wanted to expand its vast territory with new enterprises and new cities, and at that time the American government, with the purpose of getting rid of unoccupied land that belonged to the Federal Government, and also to promote the development of the states, donated to the state of Arizona the area where Lake Havasu exists, a lake that was formed by the waters of the Parker Dam, in a totally inhospitable piece of desert where it had only one abandoned Airfield runaway track of the American Air Force.
Then, the State’s government had the obligation to promote the development of the donated areas by the Federal Government, and thus the Arizona’s government trying to develop that piece of land in the middle of the desert, promised to donate that area to anyone who proposed to implement housing and tourism projects in the region.
So, the entrepreneurial vision of McCulloch came on the scene, because he wanted to bring a unit of his saw factory and with those land he could develop a project to create a city and sell properties to develop the local, and then he negotiated with the state of Arizona where he received the land through donation, with the obligation to develop and promote any real estate project, according to local laws, of course.
McCulloch then developed a housing project for a whole city, where he would take advantage of the two sides of a peninsula with a lake that was formed by the Parker Dam hydroelectric plant, also thinking about another venture linked to the manufacture of boat engines, and then our story begins.
The project of the future city of Lake Havasu city was widely disseminated throughout Arizona, and McCulloch hired as its Real Estate Agent the young Robert Plummer who commanded a sales team, and the sales began with a massive campaign in television, newspapers, magazines, and what else could be displayed that time.
On a certain morning, after almost four years of the beginning of the sales, Robert Plummer and his team had not sold even 10% of the properties, and Lake Havasu City looked more like a ghost town.
As he used to do every morning, Plummer went to his office and started reading the newspapers after the meeting with his agents about the sales strategies for the day, but on that day something caught his attention in a newspaper of national circulation and immediately he requested to his Secretary to call Mr. McCulloch’s office to see if he could attend him urgently.
After the call was confirmed by McCulloch’s Secretary, Plummer grabbed the key of his car and the newspaper he was reading and left in a hurry without saying anything. Arriving at McCulloch’s office, he entered directly into the McCulloch room and extending his hand, greeted him:
- “Good morning Mr. McCulloch”!
- “Good morning Mr. Plummer”!
- Hi, Mr. Plummer, what brings you so early and so euphoric to my office, the great Businessman McCulloch asked to his Real Estate Agent, who immediately responded:
- Sir, I want to show you what can be the solution for the sales of our project to take off once and for all, I mean, your project Mr. McCulloch.
The form to refer to each other by surnames was the way they found to differentiate the person from each other, since both had Robert as their first name.
And then, the Real Estate Agent, in the attempt to correct what he had said when referring to “our project”, said:
- Mr. McCulloch, I deeply believe that you should invest a little bit more in your project with a new concept of promotion that I’d like to present right now, and that’s the reason I’m here now.
McCulloch used to spend a few days a month in that small town in Arizona, because he had ventures in various parts of the country, and Plummer wouldn’t lose this opportunity to talk to his Boss.
McCulloch was a wealthy and a successful businessman who had tripled his fortune in less than three decades, sat down and asked his Secretary to bring water and coffee, as he would listen what Plummer has to propose now.
McCulloch, who had already invested more than one million dollars in the construction of new city in the middle of the Arizona Desert, in the beginning of the 60′s without obtaining the least result after more than three years after launching the sales, though that wouldn’t cost him nothing to listen to his Real Estate Agent one more time.
- Sit down, be comfortable and tell me Plummer, what is your new idea to increase our sales, asked McCulloch with an observation.
- We are almost in 1968 Mr. Plummer, and you and your team just has sold about 10% of the properties in almost four years, so tell me what you have in mind now, while savoring his coffee.
- Well Mr. McCulloch, the Agent began radiant: I read in the newspaper today the news of an Auction that we should participate, I mean, you should participate and try to acquire it, because if you buy it and bring it here to install in the middle of the property, your project will be on the media and would become more attractive and could attract the attention from all over the world!
- But what Auction, what should I buy Plummer, screamed McCulloch?
- And Plummer opens the newspaper on top of McCulloch’s desk and shows him the announcement, in which the London City Council will sell the London Bridge for the best price and whoever can buy it can dismantle it and bring it anywhere, and Plummer continues:
- Mr. McCulloch, a monument like that Bridge in Arizona would be the biggest attraction in this side of the world, finalized Plummer!
Plummer’s euphoria and emphasis was so great in telling about his idea that McCulloch sat in complete silence for almost half a minute, and finally got up and said:
- That’s the craziest idea I ever heard Plummer!
