Visiting
Florida in early September can be challenging given the heat and humidity… Of
course we ended up walking the streets of Ybor City on a day when the heat
index was uncomfortably over 100 degrees!
Ybor
City is actually not a city per se but rather a historic neighborhood in Tampa
Florida. It’s located just northeast of
downtown. Ybor City was founded in the
1880s by cigar manufacturers and was populated by thousands of immigrants,
mainly from Cuba, Spain, and Italy. For
the next 50 years, workers in Ybor City's cigar factories rolled millions of
cigars annually.
The
population dropped and the Ybor City declined beginning during the Great
Depression. The decline accelerated
after World War II, which lead to a period of abandonment and decay. After several decades of neglect, a portion of
the original neighborhood has been redeveloped into a night club and
entertainment district.
We
stopped in a shop along the main thoroughfare where Dawn Marie bought this
very reasonably priced and cute straw hat.
The shop was a combination bar and cigar store with a nice hat selection
as well… I took this photo of Dawn Marie and Laurie as we enjoyed a few moments
of air conditioned comfort!
The
neighborhood has been designated as a National Historic Landmark District, and
several structures in the area are listed in the National Register of Historic
Places. In 2008…this street, 7th Avenue,
which is the main commercial thoroughfare in Ybor City, was recognized as one
of the “10 Great Streets in America” by the American Planning Association.
The
ladies were ready to shop…and they were highly disappointed at the lack of
places to spend our money. There were
bars, restaurants, tattoo parlors, cigar factories and cigar shops…but no really interesting
places for them to spend some money.
In the
early 1880s, Tampa was just an isolated village with a population of less than
1000 people. However, its combination of
a good port, a new railroad line, and humid climate attracted the attention of
Vicente Martinez Ybor, a prominent Spanish-born cigar manufacturer. Ybor had moved his cigar-making operation
from Cuba to Key West, Florida in 1869, due to political turmoil in the
then-Spanish colony. But, labor unrest
and the lack of room for expansion had him looking for another base of
operations, preferably by building his own company town.
Ybor decided
that an area of sandy scrubland just northeast of Tampa would be the best
location. In 1885, the Tampa Board of
Trade helped broker an initial purchase of 40 acres of land, and Ybor quickly
bought more. Since Tampa didn’t possess
a workforce able to man the new factories, Ybor built hundreds of small houses to
attract an influx of mainly Cuban and Spanish cigar workers, many of whom
followed him from Key West and Cuba. Other
cigar manufacturers also moved in, quickly making Tampa and Ybor City a major
cigar production center.
Dawn
Marie was corralled by an elderly gentleman sitting outside one of the cigar
stores. I made the error of joining her
while Laurie wisely moved on down the sidewalk where she took this photo. Our ‘captor’ had been raised in Ybor City and
lived there all of his life. But,
instead of talking about the area and its history, he spent most of our time talking to us
about baseball…hardly a topic that either of us have expertise in…
The
desk clerk at our Hampton Inn in Largo referred us to Tabanero Cigars, a cigar
factory in Ybor City that is owned by a cousin of hers. We don’t smoke cigars (or anything else) but we decided to have
a look anyway… We do like the smell of tobacco leaves.
While
at its peak there were over 200 cigar factories in the Tampa area but that number
is now down to just a handful of survivors.
Over 500,000,000 cigars were rolled in Ybor City in 1929, which is also
the year that the Great Depression began.
To learn more about Ybor City, you can go to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ybor_City.
This is
the workshop inside the Tabanero Cigar facility. This brand advertises that their cigars are
made in the USA by Cuban artisans. Tours
are offered for $10.00 per person but we just asked if we could take a couple
of photos. There was a tip jar for
passersby like ourselves…
The
proprietor/manager told us that each of the workers in the factory produces
about 100 cigars a day. His typical
cigar 'roller' has many years of experience. There was ongoing chatter in Spanish and it
appeared that everyone enjoyed their work…
I used
to smoke an occasional cigar but the CEO of one company that I worked for
really liked his cigars. The management
team would have a meeting in a conference room and everyone would light up. A thick cloud resulted each time and that
experience ‘cured me’. I gave them
up!
There
was a coffee kiosk and a number of comfortable chairs set up at the back of the
facility. The boxes on the left were
stacked with 50 count ‘wheels’ of cigars.
Tabanero Cigars advertises that this is the only Tampa cigar factory to
make all long filler Tampa Cigars.
Reportedly for every 100 handmade Tampa Cigars sold a local Cuban
American roller, that worker will take home $80 to $120 dollars per day.
Laurie
did buy 3 cigars…one for her brother-in-law and another for each of two nephews. Single cigars cost from
$4.00 to $20.00 each and 20 count boxes cost between $100 and $180. Tabanero Cigars is located at 1601 East 7th
Avenue in Ybor City (Tampa). Phone:
813-402-6316. Website: http://www.tabanerocigars.com/.
Just
click on any of the photos to enlarge them…
Thanks
for stopping by for a visit!
Take
Care, Big Daddy Dave
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