Lars moisture farm The Lars moisture farm , also known as the Lars homestead , was a moisture farm on Tatooine owned and operated by the Lars family . Shortly before the Clone Wars , Cliegg Lars lived on the property with his second wife , Shmi Skywalker Lars , and son Owen Lars . Shmi ' s son , Jedi Knight Anakin Skywalker , visited the farm and learned of his step - family before discovering that his mother had been captured and , ultimately , killed by Tusken Raider s . After Skywalker fell to the dark side of the Force and helped destroy the Jedi Order , Jedi Master Obi - Wan Kenobi took Anakin ' s son , Luke Skywalker , to the Lars homestead , where the boy was raised by Owen and his wife , Beru . Nearly two decades later , the farm was destroyed and Owen and Beru were killed by Imperial stormtrooper s , who were searching for C - 3PO and R2 - D2 . Description . The Lars homestead was one of several moisture farm s that made up the Great Chott salt flat community , located at the southern extreme of the Jundland Wastes on the Outer Rim desert planet , Tatooine . Located mostly underground and accessed through a pourstone entry dome , the homestead was a warren of interconnected rooms and vast storage areas . Being a moisture farm , there were multiple moisture vaporator s scattered around the property , many of them decades old , capable of collecting water from Tatooine ' s dry air . Any water obtained was used either for consumption or to water the farm ' s marginally profitable hydroponic garden . The homestead was ringed by a rudimentary sensor perimeter of weather monitor s and motion detector s , used to monitor weather conditions and detect incoming intruders , such as infamous Tusken Raider s . To conserve power from the property ' s supercharged bio - converter power generator and small fusion - cell generator s , the compound was shut down after nightfall . The rooms making up the compound included a kitchen , dining room , refresher , storage room , power generator room , vehicle storage area , tech dome garage , and two living quarters . Several droids were used on the premises , including a WED 15 Treadwell repair droid and a several hundred year old EG - 6 power droid . History . Before the Clone Wars . In the waning years of the Galactic Republic , moisture farmer Cliegg Lars founded the Lars moisture farm and bequeathed it to his son , Owen . Shortly before the outbreak of the Clone Wars , Cliegg bought slave Shmi Skywalker from the Toydarian junk dealer , Watto , and freed her , proceeding to marry her shortly after . One month before the Battle of Geonosis , Shmi was out gathering in the morning when she was kidnapped by a group of Tusken Raiders . In response , Cliegg assembled a rescue party , but of the thirty farmers that went out looking for her , only four returned alive , including Cliegg , who had lost his right leg during the rescue attempt . Believing Shmi to be dead and unwilling to risk any more lives , Lars abandoned the rescue . One month later , Shmi ' s son , the Jedi Padawan Anakin Skywalker , arrived at the moisture farm , having sensed her distress through the Force . After reuniting with his old protocol droid , C - 3PO , Skywalker went to confront the residents of the homestead . Learning of what happened to his mother , Skywalker decided to search for her , despite Lars telling him to accept her death . Skywalker eventually found his mother injured in a Tusken Raider camp , where she died in his arms . The following morning , Skywalker brought Shmi ' s body back to the farm , where she was buried and given a funeral . Age of the Empire . Three years later , the Galactic Republic was reformed into the Galactic Empire , with Skywalker , now the Sith Lord Darth Vader , as its chief enforcer . To protect Skywalker ' s newly born son , Luke , Anakin ' s former master , Obi - Wan Kenobi , traveled to the Lars moisture farm and left him in the care of Owen and his wife Beru . Nineteen years later , a group of Jawa s arrived at the moisture farm in a sandcrawler , where they sold Cliegg ' s old droid , C - 3PO , to Owen , as well as the astromech droid R2 - D2 . Tasked with cleaning the droids , Skywalker went below the farm ' s tech - dome , where he discovered the astromech contained a recording made by Prince ss Leia Organa , seeking help from his father ' s old master , Obi - Wan Kenobi . After nightfall , R2 - D2 left the farm to go looking for Kenobi , which Skywalker discovered , and so the following morning he decided to search for him . After encountering Kenobi and learning that the Empire was searching for R2 - D2 and C - 3PO , Skywalker rushed back to the homestead , only to find it burned down and his aunt and uncle killed by stormtrooper s . Having no reason to stay on Tatooine , Skywalker decided to go with Kenobi to Alderaan and learn to become a Jedi . In the weeks following the Battle of Yavin , Darth Vader searched for the Rebel pilot responsible for destroying the Death Star . Discovering that the pilot was , in fact , his own son , Vader , accompanied by Doctor Aphra , revisited the abandoned homestead and followed Skywalker ' s path . While assessing the remains of the farm , Aphra speculated that Skywalker would never have left Tatooine had his family not been killed .