Zanja No. 3, Brick Culvert, Alameda Street between Temple & Aliso Streets, Los Angeles, Los Angeles County, CA

Significance: Zanja No. 3 represents a portion of the original Los Angeles water system. The zanjas, a series of ditches from the Los Angeles River, were begun immediately after the establishment of the pueblo in 1781, and provided the community with water for domestic use and irrigation. At its zenith in the early 1880s, the low service water system for the city consisted of the main ditch, called the Zanja Madre, and eight side ditches, including Zanja No. 3. When Commercial Street was opened from Los Angeles to Alameda Streets in 1869, the brick culvert was installed to carry traffic over Zanja No. 3, then an open ditch. The significance of the brick culvert of Zanja No. 3 is three-fold: it survives basically intact, including modifications; its construction typifies that found in other brick culverts in the area; and most importantly, it provides a tangible link to a system that once fed the life-blood to a dry but highly productive agricultural region that later evolved into one of the nation's largest metropolitan areas.
Unprocessed Field note material exists for this structure: FN-9
Survey number: HAER CA-50
Building/structure dates: 1869-1871 Initial Construction
Building/structure dates: 1882-1883 Subsequent Work