Portrait of Melody Carver, a nurse by night and history slueth by day. Carver and Craig Howell unearthed the Zanja Madre irrigation system in February 2000. The irrigation ditch believed to have been dug in 1781 when Los Angeles was founded, was discovered in Chinatown by the two amateur archeologists. The Zanja Madre system ran from the Los Angeles River for more than a mile to the pueblo's plaza, where the Olvera Street marketplace is now. Residents not only got their drinking water from the ditch, but the surrounding vineyards and farmland were irrigated by its water. The site, where the discovery was made, is referred to by many as the Cornfield--a nod to the past, when the parcel produced tons of corn.
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