Florida Historical Markers Programs - Marker Detail

Description: Vicente Martinez-Ybor, a wealthy Spanish Cigar manufacturer from New York and Key West, began development of Ybor City in 1885. On April 12,1886, 500 Cuban cigar makers boarded the sidewheeler Hutchinson in Key West and sailed to Tampa. Over 3,000 workers arrived by the end of 1886. Cigar factories and home construction flourished and business thrived. Ybor City became known as the "Cigar Capital of the World". The Ybor City Historic District includes more than 1,300 buildings, nearly a thousand of which are Historic. The buildings include the largest collection of cigar factories and related industrial structures in the United States; a major collection of commercial and commercial-residential structures; a group of ethnic clubhouses; and historic worker housing, many structures, built between 1886 and World War 1, display Spanish and Cuban influences, such as wrought-iron balconies, even though many architects in the area were "Anglos". The Ybor City Historic District was listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1974. For its importance in the Nation's Immigration Movement. The National Park Service declared Ybor City a National Historic Landmark District in 1990.