Ybor City is a historic neighborhood in northeast Tampa, Florida, once known as the “The Cigar Capital of the World.” How it earned that distinction is an interesting story you can learn on a Ybor City walking tour.
As a part of my recent collaboration with Visit Tampa Bay, I took a historical walking tour of Ybor City with Max Herman, owner of Tampa Bay Tours.
From the moment we met after I got off the free TECO Line Streetcar from downtown Tampa, I could tell I was in for an informative and entertaining experience.
Meet Vincente Martinez-Ybor
Max began our walking tour at the statue of Vincente Martinez-Ybor, a successful Spanish entrepreneur and cigar manufacturer.
Vincente established his first cigar factory in Cuba in 1852 and, by all accounts, was doing well there.
However, his support of Cuban independence from Spain led to tensions and his ultimate departure in 1869.
He didn’t go far, though. He set up a new cigar manufacturing operation in Key West, Florida, about 106 miles north of Cuba.
The weather was similar; the humidity and year-round warmth are good for cigarmaking.
It wasn’t long before Vincente had outgrown Key West. He scoured the U.S. for another place to grow his empire, eventually buying 40 acres of swampland northeast of downtown Tampa in 1885.
Ybor City is Born
By 1886, Vincente Martinez-Ybor had built Ybor City’s first cigar factory, a beautiful red-brick building that still stands tall today. [Note: In 2010, it was bought and restored by the Church of Scientology.]
One of the world’s largest cigar factories is useless without workers, so Vincente did everything he could to attract people to work in his factory.
This included building houses for the primarily immigrant populations that began flocking to Ybor City from Cuba, Spain, and Italy in search of new opportunities toward the end of the 19th century.
Since the immigrants arrived in the U.S. with few resources, Vincente allowed them to stay in the houses in exchange for withholding a small portion of their pay. It was a win-win scenario.
Only three of these wooden shotgun-style homes still exist.
Soon, other cigar makers were building factories in Ybor City, attracting even more immigrants.
Ybor City ultimately attracted tens of thousands of immigrants to the Tampa area over 40 years, impacting the local…
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