There's still a Ballona Creek in Mar Vista, though these days it runs along a concrete channel to the sea. In the early days, Ballona Creek was the thing that made the land around it extremely valuable. Farmers depended on the creek for their crops. But Glen Howell, co-founder of the Mar Vista Historical Society, says even if you didn't live right on the creek, you could always run an irrigation ditch.

"In Spanish, an irrigation ditch is a zanja. Well, there's a street in Mar Vista called Zanja and it is an extension of Washington Boulevard and clearly it was an irrigation ditch."

These days, folks who live on Zanja Street get their water out of the tap, not out of the ditch.

(Airdate for this story: 2/3/08)