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City of Los Angeles has held continuously in community
ownership the sole right to the water from this source.
Los Angeles' first water supply system was municipally
owned and operated. It consisted of an irrigation canal,
known as the "Zanja Madre," or the Mother Ditch,
built through community effort, and extending from the
river to a point a short distance northeast of the old
Plaza. The Indian woman who dipped the water from
the canal to carry to the several households, was the city's
first municipal employee.
As the years rolled on and the original colony grew
in numbers and demanded a constantly increasing supply
of water, it may be that the water-carrying ladies went
on a strike. At any event, they were relieved of further
duty as water distributors. Their place was taken by
men who soon devised a method of delivering each
family its daily quota of water by means of a barrel
swung between the handles of a wheelbarrow.
Still later these barrels were succeeded by an ox-drawn
water cart. The water wagon had made its first appear-
ance in Los Angeles.
In the early part of the nineteenth century a group of
enterprising residents constructed a dam across the Los
Angeles River and installed the pueblo's first water-
wheel. Buckets were attached to the paddles of the
wheel and, as it was revolved by the force of the flowing
stream, it lifted water from the river and spilled it
into the intake of a canal. By this means the towns-
people were able to ·irrigate land situated at an elevation
considerably higher than the level of the river.
Shortly after the completion of the water-lifting device
came the installation of water-driven mill wheels in the
Mother Canal itself. Power from this source was used
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