Portrait of Craig Howell, a self-described "history slug" who revels in looking for overlooked parts of Los Angeles history like old relics that tell of the development of area utility companies. Howell and Melody Carver, a nurse by night and history sleuth by day, 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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