{"nrhp_refnum":"08001090","name":"The Forty Acres","other_names":["Delano Field Office","United Farm Workers"],"category":"district","location":{"address":"30168 Garces Highway","address_restricted":false,"city":"Delano","county":"Kern County","state":"CA","lat":35.76379376245305,"lon":-119.28795254412901,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"2008-10-06","is_nhl":true,"nhl_designated_date":"2008-10-06","areas_of_significance":["Economics","Social History","Hispanic","Pacific-Islander"],"significance_levels":["national"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"A 40-acre district at 30168 Garces Highway, three miles west of Delano, Kern County, California, developed from 1966 to 1974 as the service center and national headquarters of the farmworker union led by César Chávez. It contains four buildings, sites, structures and objects, mostly in Mission Revival style.","why_significant":"The Forty Acres served as headquarters of the first permanent agricultural labor union in the United States, the United Farm Workers. It is closely tied to César Chávez, the 1965-1970 table-grape strike and the Chicano Movement. Chávez's first public fast took place at the service station, and union members here worked toward the 1975 California Agricultural Labor Relations Act.","narrative":"Forty Acres is a rural district at the corner of Garces Highway and Mettler Avenue, three miles west of Delano, California. In 1966 a farmworker organization bought the barren, alkali parcel beside the city dump and turned it into a service center and union headquarters. Between 1966 and 1974, volunteers and supporters, led by builder Richard Chávez, constructed an adobe service station, the steel-frame Roy L. Reuther Memorial Building, a health clinic and a fifty-nine-unit residential building. They also added a well, a tree-shaded park, a stone memorial, a recreational field and roads. Most buildings follow a modest Mission Revival design. The property matters as the base of César Chávez and the United Farm Workers during the table-grape strike and boycott, the first permanent agricultural labor union in the country. Chávez's first public fast took place at the service station, drawing national attention, and the union's work contributed to California's 1975 farm labor law.","period_of_significance":null,"architect_builder":"Richard Chávez (builder); James Holland, contractor from Bakersfield (service station plans finalized)","architectural_style":"Mission/Spanish Colonial Revival","criteria":[],"status_note":"Current uses listed include meeting hall, multiple dwelling, park, monument/marker and outdoor recreation.","vacant_flag":null,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-sonnet-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.0-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 02:55:31.401024-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/lz/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_CA/08001090_NHL.pdf"},"photo":{"url_800":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/08001090/4675910973-800.webp","url_1600":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/08001090/4675910973-1600.webp","licence":"CC BY 3.0","author":"Bobak Ha'Eri","credit_html":"<a href=\"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:2009-0725-CA-Delano-40acres.jpg\" rel=\"noopener\">Bobak Ha'Eri</a>, <a href=\"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0\" rel=\"license noopener\">CC BY 3.0</a>, via Wikimedia Commons","source_page":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:2009-0725-CA-Delano-40acres.jpg"},"district":null,"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/123857907","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Forty_Acres","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q14684110"},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/california/kern-county/the-forty-acres-08001090/"}