Travel curiosities

Why did San Antonio move an entire hotel through downtown?

How did London Bridge end up in Arizona? Did the Fairmount Hotel really roll through downtown San Antonio? And what is a medieval Spanish monastery doing among the palm trees of South Florida? Some landmarks simply weren’t meant to stay where they were first built. Along the way, their moves became part of history and a new identity. Here are 10 landmarks that no longer stand where they were originally built.

London Bridge looks a little out of place among Arizona’s palm trees and desert mountains, but its granite stones actually did come from the bridge that once crossed London’s River Thames.

By the 1960s, the old bridge could no longer handle London’s growing traffic, and entrepreneur Robert P. McCulloch bought it in 1968, hoping it would attract more visitors to the developing Lake Havasu City. Its exterior granite blocks were shipped through the Panama Canal to California, then taken by truck to Arizona. There, the stones were placed around a new internal structure. The rebuilt bridge opened in 1971, and visitors can still drive, walk, or cycle across it today. According to a popular urban legend, McCulloch thought he was buying the iconic Tower Bridge and was disappointed when he realized it wasn’t the bridge he intended. Although it makes a great story, McCulloch’s family has dismissed it as false. He knew exactly which bridge he was buying.

Imagine looking down a city street and seeing an entire hotel slowly rolling toward you. San Antonio residents got that view in 1985. The Fairmount Hotel had stood in the city since 1906, but new development put the building in danger of demolition.

With help from local preservationists, engineers moved the entire 14,000-square-foot, three-story hotel six blocks to a new site. The 1,600-ton building rolled through downtown on 36 rubber-tired hydraulic dollies. The trip lasted four days and even required crossing a bridge over the River Walk. Crews reinforced the bridge to support the hotel’s enormous weight, and the Fairmount eventually reached its new home safely.

What is a medieval monastery doing in North Miami Beach? The story begins in northern Spain, in a province called Segovia, where it had stood for centuries. Newspaper publisher William Randolph Hearst was an avid collector of European art and architecture, and he bought the cloisters and several outbuildings in 1925 with plans to bring them to the country. However, the monastery itself has no historic connection to the United States.

It was taken apart stone by stone, and the pieces were packed into wooden crates before crossing the Atlantic. Hearst planned to rebuild it at his San Simeon estate in California, but financial problems stopped the project. The crates instead sat in a Brooklyn warehouse for 26 years. New owners finally bought the pieces in the 1950s and brought them to Florida. Rebuilding the monastery took 19 months, and it eventually became part of an active Episcopal church.

Alexander Hamilton lived in Hamilton Grange from 1802 until he died in 1804. But his wife, Elizabeth Schuyler Hamilton, lived there for another 30 years. The house was actually moved twice. The house originally stood near what is now West 143rd Street and Convent Avenue, in Upper Manhattan. But as the city expanded, the Manhattan street grid reached the property. In 1889, the house was moved nearby to land owned by St. Luke’s Episcopal Church.

That move saved the building, but the neighborhood kept growing, and the National Park Service moved it again in 2008. The house traveled to St. Nicholas Park, which had once been part of Hamilton’s original estate. The new site also gave the house more open space, making it possible to restore more of its original setting and appearance.

Architect John Nash designed the white marble monument as the main entrance to Buckingham Palace in 1827. But when the palace was expanded for Queen Victoria and her growing family, the monument stood in the way of the new wing.

Instead of removing it for good, it was taken apart and rebuilt at Cumberland Gate in 1851, where it became a grand entrance to Hyde Park. The location was especially fitting that year, as Hyde Park was hosting the Great Exhibition, the first international world's fair, celebrating industrial, technological, and artistic achievements from around the globe. Later road changes left the arch separated from the park on the traffic island where visitors see it today.

Cape Hatteras Lighthouse stands in North Carolina’s Outer Banks, but not where it was built in 1870. Today, it sits 2,900 feet southwest of its original location. The main cause was erosion, as the shoreline kept moving closer to the lighthouse until the ocean was only about 60 feet away. After years of trying to protect it in place, the National Park Service decided that moving the entire structure was the safest option.

In 1999, engineers lifted the lighthouse and placed it on a system of steel beams and rollers, where hydraulic jacks pushed it along a prepared track about five feet at a time. After 23 days, the lighthouse reached its new location without being taken apart. And its other historic buildings were moved too, keeping the light station together as it had been before.

If you’ve ever visited the Metropolitan Museum of Art in Manhattan, you’ve probably come across the ancient Egyptian Temple of Dendur that once stood along the Nile in Egypt. When Egypt built the Aswan High Dam between 1960 and 1970, the new Lake Nasser would flood the temple’s original site, so it was taken apart as an international effort to save the region’s ancient monuments.

Egypt later gave it to the United States as a thank-you for helping with the rescue. Its stone blocks crossed the Atlantic and arrived in New York in 1968. The Met then rebuilt the temple inside a designed gallery, which opened to the public in 1978. Nowadays, visitors can actually see a 2,000-year-old Egyptian temple without leaving Manhattan.

Highland Light had watched over Cape Cod for generations, turning into one of the peninsula’s classic views. But erosion brought the edge closer, and by the early 1990s, the light station stood only about 100 feet from the cliff. At that point, moving the historic structure became the only option for saving it.

In 1996, Highland Light was moved 450 feet away from the cliff during an 18-day operation. Once it reached safer ground, it was placed on a new foundation and returned to service that November. It still works today as an active navigation light.

By the late 1990s, Belle Tout Lighthouse was getting dangerously close to the edge of the cliffs at Beachy Head. Years of coastal erosion and several landslides had worn away the land around it. By 1998, the lighthouse stood only about 13 feet from the edge, with a drop of roughly 200 feet below.

In 1999, engineers lifted the lighthouse with 22 hydraulic jacks and placed it on concrete beams. The structure was then slowly pushed about 56 feet inland. Its new foundation was designed so the lighthouse could be moved again if erosion continues, so it may actually not have reached its final address yet.

The temples of Abu Simbel aren’t where they were carved between approximately 1264 BC and 1244 BC; they were moved in the 1960s to save them from flooding. Egypt was building the Aswan High Dam, which would create a huge reservoir across parts of Nubia. The rising water would cover Abu Simbel, so UNESCO brought several countries together to help save the temples.

Engineers cut the temples into more than 1,000 numbered blocks, and the pieces were moved about 210 feet higher and 590 feet inland, then carefully rebuilt inside an artificial cliff. Abu Simbel finally reopened at its new location in 1968.

Ten quirky Route 66 roadside attractions that have survived the decades

Route 66 roadside attractions too quirky to tear down

The Mother Road has seen better days, sure, but some of its weirdest landmarks refuse to fade into history. These ten survivors prove that America's appetite for roadside oddities is stronger than ever.

Image: The Erica Chang, CC BY 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

Hugh Davis built this smiling 80-foot whale in 1972 as an anniversary gift for his wife, who collected whale figurines. What started as a backyard pond ornament became a beloved swimming hole where kids would cannonball off the tail and slide down the fins. The water's gone now, but that goofy grin remains.

Today, it stands as one of Route 66's most photographed stops, which is saying something on a highway full of giant things.

Image: Heidi Kaden

In 1974, some artists decided the best use for ten Cadillacs was planting them nose-first in a wheat field at the same angle as the Great Pyramid of Giza. Sure, why not? Visitors are actively encouraged to spray paint the cars, so they've been repainted thousands of times in every color combination imaginable.

The installation has been relocated once to escape urban development, but otherwise remains as wonderfully useless as it was fifty years ago.

Image: formulanone from Huntsville, United States, CC BY-SA 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

Standing 28 feet tall in full astronaut gear, clutching a silver rocket ship, the Gemini Giant has been luring hungry motorists to what's now a Polish restaurant since 1965. He's one of the few surviving "Muffler Men", those giant fiberglass statues that used to decorate the American landscape like some weird corporate totem pole convention.

His space suit might be a bit outdated, but he's been restored and repainted a couple of times. The restaurant beneath him has changed concepts more times than anyone can count, but the big guy stays put, still holding that rocket like he's waiting for NASA to call him back.

Image: daveynin, CC BY 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

Elmer Long took his father's old glass bottles and created a forest of "trees" made from pipes and bottles that catch the desert sun like a fever dream. Over 200 bottle trees stand in the Mojave Desert, along with vintage signs, old railings, and whatever else Elmer felt like adding to his peculiar garden.

It started as one man's tribute to his dad and became a kaleidoscope attraction that makes you question whether you've had too much sun. Elmer passed away in 2019, but his family keeps the ranch open and free to visitors.

Image: ExqBoredinNac, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

This Art Deco masterpiece from 1936 was nearly demolished before locals rallied to save and restore it. With its green glazed tiles, geometric patterns, and tower that wouldn't look out of place in Oz, it's no wonder Pixar used it as inspiration for the Cars movie.

Today, it serves as Shamrock's visitor center. The restoration brought back the neon signs, making nighttime photos spectacular.

Image: John Margolies, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Built in 1949, this is one of the only three surviving Wigwam Villages from a chain of seven that once dotted the country. Each "wigwam" is a separate room arranged in a semicircle around the main office wigwam.

Despite the questionable concept, preservationists fought to save it, and it's now on the National Register of Historic Places. The rooms have been updated with modern amenities, but the outsides remain wonderfully vintage.

Image: Dofftoubab, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

A 170-foot water tower disguised as a Brooks Catsup bottle has been confusing and delighting drivers since 1949. It held water for the Brooks bottling plant, which means this town literally kept itself hydrated with a giant condiment. The plant closed, but destroying a beloved ketchup monument? That's un-American.

A community group formed specifically to save and restore it in the 1990s, complete with fresh paint and structural repairs. It's now a proud symbol of Collinsville, which really commits to the bit—they even host an annual catsup bottle festival.

Image: Alan Levine, CC BY-SA 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

When the Eagles sang about standing on a corner in Winslow, Arizona, they probably didn't imagine the town would build an actual tourist attraction around it. But that's exactly what happened. There's a statue of a guy with a guitar, a trompe-l'oeil mural showing the girl in the flatbed Ford, and tourists taking turns posing on that corner every single day.

Winslow was dying when Route 66 got bypassed by the interstate, but this corner became a lifeline. The whole town got into the act with shops and restaurants cashing in on seven words from a song.

Image: David Hinkson, http://www.trailnet.org/, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Most bridges go straight across the water because, you know, engineering. This one makes a dramatic 22-degree bend halfway across the Mississippi River, which must have been a delightful surprise for drivers. The bend was built to avoid a rock formation underneath, proving that sometimes geography can beat good sense.

Closed to cars in 1970, it's now a bike and walking trail where you can experience that weird bend without worrying about oncoming traffic. On a clear day, you can see the Gateway Arch from here, making it a two-for-one landmark special.

Image: Volker Schmidt, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons

For miles along the highway, yellow billboards proclaim "HERE IT IS". When you finally arrive, you're greeted by a giant jackrabbit statue that's equal parts charming and unsettling. The trading post has been selling souvenirs, Native American crafts, and jackrabbit postcards since 1949, proving that effective advertising never goes out of style.

The rabbit itself has become more famous than what's being sold inside, which is the whole point of roadside attractions anyway.