UFW Headquarters on a Former TB Sanitarium Campus
29700 Woodford-Tehachapi Rd, Keene, CA 93531
Age
All Ages
Cost
Free
Free admission — National Park Service unit
Access
Wheelchair OK
Paved paths on a National Monument campus
Equipment
Photos OK
Est. 1918 · Labor History · National Monument · César Chávez · Tuberculosis History · UFW History · California Agricultural History
The property in the Tehachapi Mountains that would become La Paz has layers of institutional history stretching back more than a century. In 1917, Kern County shut down a quarry operation on the site; the following year, the California Bureau of Tuberculosis selected the property for a new sanitarium called Stony Brook Retreat. Over the following decades, the compound grew to include dormitories, hospitals, a schoolhouse for young patients, administrative buildings, and infrastructure for treating the region's TB cases. One building was constructed specifically as a children's hospital in the early 1920s.
The sanitarium operated for nearly fifty years before closing in 1967. Three years later, the United Farm Workers of America, led by César Chávez, chose the compound to establish their national headquarters, renaming it Nuestra Señora Reina de la Paz — Our Lady, Queen of Peace, or simply La Paz. Chávez lived and worked at La Paz from 1972 until his death in 1993.
President Barack Obama designated the property as the César E. Chávez National Monument on October 8, 2012, under the Antiquities Act. The National Park Service manages the site in partnership with the National Chavez Center. Chávez is buried in the rose garden on the campus. The monument is open daily from 10am to 4pm at 29700 Woodford-Tehachapi Rd, Keene, CA 93531.
Sources
The paranormal accounts associated with La Paz center on the older, unused sections of the former sanitarium, particularly the children's hospital wing that dates to the early 1920s. The Shadowlands narrative describes a visitor's experience of walking past a door sealed off from the back building who heard banging on the door from inside — followed by the doorknob turning.
Scary HQ and other paranormal sources document additional reported phenomena: swings on the property moving on their own, and voices heard in the unused hospital sections. One account describes an EVP-type experience of hearing children's laughter near the old building before the UFW renovation.
The property's history provides a plausible emotional architecture for these reports — the campus housed seriously ill children in its sanitarium years, and the children's hospital specifically would have been the setting for significant suffering and death among its young patients. Whether these reports reflect genuine anomalies or the psychological weight of being in a deteriorating institutional building with that history is a question the location leaves open.
The monument is fully operational and managed by the National Park Service; the haunted lore is an overlay on what is primarily a major American historical and cultural landmark.
Tour the 116-acre campus where César Chávez led the United Farm Workers from 1972 until his death in 1993. The grounds include Chávez's home, the UFW offices, the rose garden where he is buried, and the preserved buildings of the former Stony Brook tuberculosis sanitarium — including a children's hospital wing built in the early 1920s.
Every HauntBound history is researched from documented sources. We clearly separate verified historical fact from paranormal folklore.
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