Tomasa Zapata Service Station

Tomasa Zapata Service Station. . , A co-op service station providing fuel and auto repairs for farm workers was one of the movement's earliest services in the mid-1960s. The first permanent structure built on the Forty Acres, its Mission-style adobe walls and tile roof set the theme for buildings on the property. Pumps in front dispensed "Huelga Co-op Gas," and the west room had bays to repair vehicles. , , The service station was completed in early 1968, just in time for Cesar Chavez to spend most of hist 25-day fast for nonviolence inside a tiny room at the gas station that February and March. Here, Robert F. Kennedy greeted Chavez before attending a mass ending the fast at Delano's Memorial Park on March 10, 1968. , , Two visible blemishes on the building's exterior reflect the tensions of the times. Bullets were fired from a passing vehicles in the late 1960s, leaving holes in the building's south wall. In 1973, a bomb exploded near the southwest corner during the grape strike; damaging the adobe wall. , , photo captions: , · The gas station was the first building constructed at the Forty Acres, with work beginning in 1967. , , · Pumps at the gas station dispensed "Huelga Co-op Gas," symbolizing the cooperative spirit of the farm worker movement.