Ybor City Historic District in Hillsborough County, Florida

Photograph: Tampa Ybor City entr 01.jpg by Ebyabe · CC BY 2.5 · Restored from the credited Wikimedia Commons file, normalized to the consistent attraction-card frame and converted to WebP by 1stFlorida.com. Portrait originals retain their complete composition over a softly blurred extension of the same photograph.

Hillsborough County attraction

Ybor City Historic District

Hillsborough County · Gulf Coast

The old cigar quarter northeast of downtown Tampa, founded in 1886 and named a National Historic Landmark district in 1990.

ABOUT THIS PLACE

Vicente Martinez Ybor, a Spanish cigar manufacturer who had moved his operation from Cuba to Key West, bought scrubland northeast of Tampa in 1885 and began building a company town the following year. Workers came from Cuba, Spain, Italy and Romania, and the neighborhood they made had its own mutual aid societies, clubs, bakeries and newspapers alongside the factories. At its height Ybor City turned out hundreds of millions of hand-rolled cigars a year. The district was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1974 and raised to National Historic Landmark standing on December 14, 1990. It covers roughly 369 acres and takes in around 956 buildings. It is not whole: an urban renewal project in 1965 cleared about 70 acres, and Interstate 4 cut through soon after, leaving the landmark district in three separate pieces. What remains is worth the walk. Seventh Avenue is the main street, lined with brick buildings, wrought iron balconies and hexagonal paving blocks. The J.C. Newman Cigar Company still rolls cigars in its 1910 factory and gives tours. The Ybor City Museum State Park occupies an old bakery, and the Columbia Restaurant has been serving since 1905

GETTING THERE

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