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Falling For It · Aaron Mahnke's Cabinet of Curiosities

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  Speaker 1: Welcome to Aaron Manke's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of
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  Speaker 1: iHeartRadio and Grimm and Mild. Our world is full of
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  Speaker 1: the unexplainable, and if history is an open book, all
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  Speaker 1: of these amazing tales are right there on display, just
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  Speaker 1: waiting for us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet of Curiosities.
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  Speaker 1: Legends abound in South Carolina's Low Country, yet one eclipses
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  Speaker 1: them all. A larger than life figure whose mastery of
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  Speaker 1: the region's tangled swamps and marshes terrified the British during
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  Speaker 1: the Revolutionary War. A man who could reportedly summon battalions
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  Speaker 1: of soldiers within the forest and then disappear into the darkness.
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  Speaker 1: It was rumored that he blew up the Georgetown Artillery
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  Speaker 1: single match, and if you take a ghost tour of
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  Speaker 1: the city today, you'll hear stories of his spirit guiding
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  Speaker 1: lost travelers through the swamp. There is some measure of
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  Speaker 1: truth to the stories of this terrible figure. His name
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  Speaker 1: was Francis Marion, and his actions during the War for
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  Speaker 1: America's Independence earned him the nickname the swamp Fox. Marion
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  Speaker 1: was born in January of seventeen thirty two near what
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  Speaker 1: is now Berkeley County, thirty miles inland from the city
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  Speaker 1: of Charleston. He grew up outdoors, becoming an avid fisherman
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  Speaker 1: and hunter, and because of this he gained an intimate
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  Speaker 1: knowledge of the swamps and forests along the Cooper and
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  Speaker 1: Edistone rivers and was an expert in navigating them. He
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  Speaker 1: further expanded his skills when he served as a militia
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  Speaker 1: lieutenant in the French and Indian War, where his familiarity
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  Speaker 1: with the frontier proved valuable as a scout and as
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  Speaker 1: a commander of irregular detachments that relied on ambush, raid
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  Speaker 1: movement and intimate use of terrain. In seventeen eighty, Charleston
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  Speaker 1: became a major focus of British strategy, which aimed to
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  Speaker 1: seize the city and use it as a stronghold in
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  Speaker 1: the fight against revolutionary forces. It was at the time
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  Speaker 1: the largest port in the Southern Colonies, and it helped
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  Speaker 1: to supply forces throughout the Southeast. By capturing Charleston, the
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  Speaker 1: British could effectively cut off support to much of the
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  Speaker 1: continental army. On January twenty ninth, approximately two thousand British
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  Speaker 1: troops landed in and around Charleston Harbor. By February two,
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  Speaker 1: they had captured Fort Moultrie and turning its artillery against
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  Speaker 1: the city. Within the week, they'd begun a steady barrage
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  Speaker 1: against Charleston's defenses, while British troops began slowly circling the
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  Speaker 1: city on land, digging trenches to lay siege to the town.
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  Speaker 1: On March twenty ninth, they succeeded in breaking the opposing
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  Speaker 1: army at the Battle of Monk's Corner, forcing the Continental
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  Speaker 1: Army's retreat. Then on May twelfth, the siege ended when
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  Speaker 1: Continental General Benjamin Lincoln signed articles of capitulation as the
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  Speaker 1: British took control of the port city. Approximately six hundred
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  Speaker 1: were dead at another thirty five hundred had been taken prisoner.
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  Speaker 1: It was a decisive victory, and the Redcoats now had
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  Speaker 1: a base of operations to spread out across the South,
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  Speaker 1: but Charleston would not prove easy to hold. After Charleston fell,
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  Speaker 1: Marion began a gorilla campaign to assist the army in
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  Speaker 1: reclaiming the city. He worked closely with the militia of
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  Speaker 1: Colonel Thomas Sumter to establish camps in nearby forests and
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  Speaker 1: swamps surrounding the Santee River that would be hidden from
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  Speaker 1: British forces, and from there he used the dense foliage
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  Speaker 1: and the shallow waters to conceal himself and his troops
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  Speaker 1: when spying on enemy supply routes, ambushing ammunition convoys and
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  Speaker 1: destroying what they could not carry. The largest of these
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  Speaker 1: ambushes took place at Briar Creek when his men captured
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  Speaker 1: a British supply depot and destroyed a powder magazine, forcing
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  Speaker 1: the British military to divert troops away from the city,
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  Speaker 1: and so he nipped away at those laying siege, occasionally
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  Speaker 1: raiding food stores and destroying artillery, and then disappearing back
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  Speaker 1: into the swamp. And Marian used psychological tactics as well.
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  Speaker 1: Over the years, he cultivated a network of support in
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  Speaker 1: the communities north of the city, using them to help
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  Speaker 1: spread word of a phantom army hiding within the swamps,
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  Speaker 1: setting fires on hilltops and screaming in the middle of
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  Speaker 1: the night, convincing the British Army that they were being
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  Speaker 1: stalked by ghosts. When the British Army finally managed to
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  Speaker 1: strike back, the results of Marion's efforts were loud and clear.
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  Speaker 1: The British supply lines had been so thoroughly depleted that
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  Speaker 1: their soldiers arrived under fed and under supplied, which helped
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  Speaker 1: Continental forces land a decisive victory in January of seventeen
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  Speaker 1: eighty one. The defeats left the British forces diminished, and
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  Speaker 1: further decisive winds, aided by Marian's continuing raids, slowly made
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  Speaker 1: holding the city of Charleston impossible. The British were on
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  Speaker 1: the defensive in the South now as well as in
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  Speaker 1: the north, and their forces finally evacuated the city on
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  Speaker 1: December eleventh of seventeen eighty two. Francis Marian's relentless hidden
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  Speaker 1: run tactics turned the landscape of the Low Country into
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  Speaker 1: a weapon of its own, forcing the British to fight
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  Speaker 1: a war they could not win against foes they couldn't track.
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  Speaker 1: By starving their supply trains, scattering their troops, and adding
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  Speaker 1: a bit of folklore, Marian helped turn a hopeless siege
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  Speaker 1: into a series of setbacks, ultimately leading to the liberation
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  Speaker 1: of Charleston. His legacy endures not only in the folklore
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  Speaker 1: that still haunts ghost tour guides and riverbanks, but in
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  Speaker 1: the very notion that a small mobile force, armed with
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  Speaker 1: intimate knowledge of its terrain can often tip the balance
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  Speaker 1: of a great war. Robert was a shrewd business man.
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  Speaker 1: He saw opportunities where a few others did. He made
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  Speaker 1: his fortune selling chainsaws of all things printed with his
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  Speaker 1: name on them in big, bold letters. He invested in oil,
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  Speaker 1: created steam powered vehicles. He built airplanes, and created, at
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  Speaker 1: the time the world's tallest fountain. And with such impressive accomplishments,
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  Speaker 1: it's easy to see why no one questioned Robert McCulloch's
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  Speaker 1: business intuition when he set his sites on a barren
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  Speaker 1: twenty six miles of Arizona Desert in nineteen fifty eight.
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  Speaker 1: The land had previously been used as an Army Air
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  Speaker 1: Corps resting camp during World War Two, but nothing permanent
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  Speaker 1: had ever been built there. But when Robert McCulloch looked
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  Speaker 1: out at the vast desert stretching toward the Colorado River,
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  Speaker 1: he didn't see a desolate landscape. He saw an opportunity.
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  Speaker 1: He planned to build a city there, attracting families and
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  Speaker 1: retirees who'd loved the southwest location. The hazy Orange sunsets
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  Speaker 1: and the calm flowing waters of the Colorado River, and
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  Speaker 1: he tested it for himself too. The first thing he
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  Speaker 1: built in his new town was a fishing cabin situated
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  Speaker 1: on the Lake Havasu basin. McCullough told people at the
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  Speaker 1: time the fish were eager to buy, which seemed like
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  Speaker 1: a good omen to him. Unfortunately, the buyers weren't willing
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  Speaker 1: to bite. McCulloch's land, which he thought would sell fast,
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  Speaker 1: didn't appeal to many people at all. Firstly, there was
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  Speaker 1: the fact that it was so remote, situated in the
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  Speaker 1: middle of the desert, with the nearest city almost a
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  Speaker 1: four hour drive away. Even the closest small town was
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  Speaker 1: miles and miles away from it. The climate was hot
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  Speaker 1: and dry, which meant the land couldn't be used for
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  Speaker 1: farming or livestock, and since Lake Havasu City hadn't even
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  Speaker 1: been built yet, there was nothing to attract visitors. McCulloch
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  Speaker 1: refused to give up. There must be a way to
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  Speaker 1: encourage people to buy property and move to the area.
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  Speaker 1: He consulted with his real estate agent, a man named
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  Speaker 1: Robert Plumer, and to his surprise, Plumer said that he
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  Speaker 1: was sure he had a solution, although it was a
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  Speaker 1: pretty unusual one. Now from here, I'm going to take
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  Speaker 1: a sharp left turn, so please try not to get whiplash.
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  Speaker 1: Have you heard the nursery rhyme London Bridge is falling down?
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  Speaker 1: Of course you have. But what you may not know
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  Speaker 1: is that in nineteen six twenty seven it actually was
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  Speaker 1: falling down, which honestly shouldn't be a surprise. The bridge
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  Speaker 1: was a relic of the past, after all, having been
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  Speaker 1: built in eighteen thirty one, and as London expanded around
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  Speaker 1: it and traffic demands increased, the bridge was becoming dangerously
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  Speaker 1: weak and desperately in need of being replaced. That's when
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  Speaker 1: one of the city councilors came up with a novel idea.
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  Speaker 1: In order to recoup some of the money the city
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  Speaker 1: would lose building a new one, he suggested London auction
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  Speaker 1: off their famous bridge to the highest bidder, and the
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  Speaker 1: real estate agent Plumer Well he thought that McCulloch should
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  Speaker 1: buy it. It would attract more land buyers, give people
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  Speaker 1: a reason to visit Lake Havasu City, and add to
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  Speaker 1: McCulloch's impressive legacy, and unsurprisingly he went for it. In
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  Speaker 1: April of nineteen sixty eight, Robert McCulloch became the proud
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  Speaker 1: new owner of London Bridge for just shy of two
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  Speaker 1: point five million dollars. And then came the next challenge,
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  Speaker 1: moving the bridge from London to Arizona. To begin, McCulloch
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  Speaker 1: needed somewhere to put it. A bridge as historic and
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  Speaker 1: monumental as this one deserved a special crossing, something more
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  Speaker 1: fitting than an endless stretch of desert sand. He hired
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  Speaker 1: a massive crew to carve a large peninsula of Lake
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  Speaker 1: Havasou into an island. London Bridge would stretch across this
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  Speaker 1: teal colored water and be the only crossing on or
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  Speaker 1: off the island. As for the bridge itself, workers meticulously
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  Speaker 1: labeled hundreds of granite bricks. They cataloged the bricks which
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  Speaker 1: came from each arch span, each row, each position, and
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  Speaker 1: then came disassembly. Ten thousand tons of granite stones were
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  Speaker 1: packed into crates and sailed across the Atlantic, through the
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  Speaker 1: Panama Canal and up to Long Beach, California. And from
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  Speaker 1: there the crates were loaded onto enormous trucks and driven
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  Speaker 1: through the California desert to Lake Havasou. Would the bridge
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  Speaker 1: still be too weak to handle traffic, you might ask,
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  Speaker 1: Bakala thought the same thing. He had construction crews build
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  Speaker 1: a new frame made of reinforced concrete to ensure it
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  Speaker 1: would be safe to drive on, and only then could
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  Speaker 1: the bridge be reconstructed and all those granite bricks placed
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  Speaker 1: exactly where they belonged. In total, the disassembly, transportation, and
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  Speaker 1: reconstruction took three whole years and cost McCulloch another seven
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  Speaker 1: million dollars, and in the end it worked. Buyers flocked
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  Speaker 1: to Lake Havasu for the grand opening of Arizona's London Bridge.
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  Speaker 1: London's own Lord Mayor came to town for the event,
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  Speaker 1: and today Lakeavasou City is a bustling town with a
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  Speaker 1: major tourism industry and fifty thousand happy residents. Looking back,
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  Speaker 1: McCulloch's story encourages all of us to take that leap
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  Speaker 1: of faith, however big it might be, because you never
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  Speaker 1: know you may land on just the right bridge. I
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  Speaker 1: hope you enjoyed today's guided tour through the Cabinet of Curiosities.
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  Speaker 1: This show was created by me Aaron Manke in partnership
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  Speaker 1: with iHeart Podcasts, researched and written by the Grim and
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  Speaker 1: Mild team and produced by Jesse Funk. Learn more about
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  Speaker 1: the show and the people who make it over at
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  Speaker 1: Grimandmild dot com slash Curiosities. You'll also find a link
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  Speaker 1: to the official Cabinet of Curiosity's hardcover book, available in
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  Speaker 1: bookstores and online, as well as ebook and audiobook. And
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  Speaker 1: if you're looking for an ad free option, consider joining
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  Speaker 1: our Patreon. It's all the same stories, but without the
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  Speaker 1: interruption for a small monthly fee. Learn more and sign
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  Speaker 1: up over at patreon dot com slash Grimandmild, and until
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  Speaker 1: next time, stay curious.