Robert Paxton McCulloch (May 11, 1911 – February 25, 1977) was an American entrepreneur from Missouri, best known for McCulloch chainsaws and purchasing the "New" London Bridge, which he moved to Lake Havasu City, Arizona — one of the cities he founded. Biography Robert Paxton McCulloch was born May 11, 1911, in Missouri to Richard McCulloch and Mary Grace Beggs. His grandfather, John I. Beggs, made his fortune by implementing Thomas Edison's electrical powerplants in cities around the world, manufacturing and selling electric trolley cars, and founding Milwaukee's public utility system. McCulloch, along with his two siblings, inherited his grandfather's fortune in 1925. Two years after he graduated from Stanford University, he married Barbra Ann Briggs, whose father was Stephen Foster Briggs of Briggs and Stratton. His first manufacturing endeavor was McCulloch Engineering Company, located in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. There he built racing engines and superchargers. In his early 30s, he sold the company to Borg-Warner Corporation for US$1 million. McCulloch then started McCulloch Aviation; and, in 1946, he changed his company's name to McCulloch Motors Corporation. Building small gasoline engines, his competitors included his in-laws and Ralph Evinrude. Evinrude led the market for boat motors, while Briggs and Stratton pulled ahead in the lawn mower and garden tractor market. Chainsaws It was the chainsaw niche that McCulloch dominated, beginning with the first chainsaw with his name on it, manufactured in 1948. McCulloch's chainsaw was used to cut lake ice and trees. By the next year, McCulloch's model 3-25 further revolutionized the market with the one-man light weight chainsaw. Oil & Development In the 1950s, McCulloch started McCulloch Oil Corporation, which pursued oil and gas exploration, land development, and geothermal energy. In spite of Evinrude's market lead, McCulloch continued to pursue the outboard market during the next decade. This led him to Lake Havasu, in Mohave County, Arizona, in search of a test site. McCulloch purchased of lakeside property along Pittsburgh Point. In 1963, on the courthouse steps of Kingman, McCulloch purchased a parcel of barren desert that would become the site for Lake Havasu City. At the time it was the largest single tract of state land ever sold in Arizona, and the cost per acre was under US$75. To spur the growth of the city, in 1964 McCulloch opened a chainsaw manufacturing plant there. Within two years there were three manufacturing plants, with some 400 employees. Other communities developed