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César E. Chávez National Monument

The Heritage Documentation Programs (HABS/HAER/HALS) of the National Park Service is pleased to present our virtual tour of the recently created César E. Chávez National Monument in Keene, California.

The virtual tour shows the 108-acre former home and workplace of César E. Chávez. It includes 360-degree panoramas of the national monument and includes a peek into his personal office as it appeared when Chávez was the charismatic leader of the United Farm Workers union from 1970 to 1988. The tour's panoramic views allows visitors to explore the site and landscape features where union activities took place and to view historic buildings, originally built by the State of California as a tuberculosis sanitarium, repurposed by the United Farm Workers for their use.

César E. Chávez, a civil rights leader among Latinos during the 1950s, was leader of the United Farm Workers union and assumed major roles in the broader labor, Chicano, and environmental movements. As a result, Chávez earned a high degree of national prominence during his lifetime and improved the lives of U.S. farm workers by securing them higher wages and safer working conditions.

The César E. Chávez National Monument is also known as Nuestra Señora Reina de La Paz (Our Lady of the Peace) or simply La Paz. When the HABS team did its field work at La Paz in 2012, Mrs. Helen Chávez, César's wife, still called it home. Following her death in 2016, she was buried alongside her husband in the Memorial Garden. The United Farm Workers union continues to run its headquarters at La Paz.

The tour was created through the support of Ruben Andrade, Superintendent of César E. Chávez National Monument, the National Park Service's Pacific West Region Cultural Resources Program, and the National Park Service's Washington Support Office Park Cultural Landscapes Program. Jeremy Mauro, Heritage Documentation Programs Architect, created the virtual tour.

For more information please visit the César E. Chávez National Monument website.

Click an image below to take the virtual tour or see the archival HABS documentation: