 After a few years, Childs was able to buy out his partner, and eventually left the trade with $40,000 in his pocket.Not long afterward, he obtained the contract to build an extension of the Zanja Madre, a canal system to bring water to the fields south of the pueblo.He was paid in land in that area – all now within present day Downtown Los Angeles - from Sixth to Ninth, and Main to Figueroa Street.