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.
ISBN: | 9780099565765 |
Publication date: | 6th February 2014 |
Author: | Travis Elborough |
Publisher: | Vintage an imprint of Vintage Publishing |
Format: | Paperback |
Pagination: | 288 pages |
Genres: |
Social and cultural history European history |