The Ybor Factory Building is a historic site in

Tampa Tampa () is a city on the Gulf Coast of the U.S. state of Florida. The city's borders include the north shore of Tampa Bay and the east shore of Old Tampa Bay. Tampa is the largest city in the Tampa Bay area and the seat of Hillsborough County ...

Florida Florida is a state located in the Southeastern region of the United States. Florida is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the northwest by Alabama, to the north by Georgia, to the east by the Bahamas and Atlantic Ocean, and to ...

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

located at 1911 North 13th Street. The main factory and its surrounding support buildings cover an entire city block between 8th Avenue and 9th Avenues and 13th and 14th Streets in the

Ybor City Historic District The Ybor City Historic District ( ) is a U.S. National Historic Landmark District (designated as such on December 14, 1990) located in Tampa, Florida. The district is bounded by 6th Avenue, 13th Street, 10th Avenue and 22nd Street, East ...

section of the

Ybor City Ybor City ( ) is a historic neighborhood just northeast of downtown Tampa, downtown Tampa, Florida, United States. It was founded in the 1880s by Vicente Martinez-Ybor and other cigar manufacturers and populated by thousands of immigrants, mainly ...

neighborhood. C. E. Parcell is credited as the building's architect.

History

The factory was built in 1886 by

Vicente Martinez-Ybor Vicente Martinez Ybor (7 September 1818 – 14 December 1896), was a Spanish entrepreneur who first became a noted industrialist and cigar manufacturer in Cuba, then Key West, and finally Tampa, Florida. Martinez Ybor is best known for his found ...

as he moved the production of his ''Príncipe de Gales'' ("Prince of Wales") cigar line from

Key West Key West ( es, Cayo Hueso) is an island in the Straits of Florida, within the U.S. state of Florida. Together with all or parts of the separate islands of Dredgers Key, Fleming Key, Sunset Key, and the northern part of Stock Island, it cons ...

to the new company town he founded just northeast of Tampa in 1885. The headquarters of Ybor's holding company was directly across 9th Avenue in the El Pasaje building, which was constructed at about the same time. The three-story structure was the first brick cigar factory in Tampa and the largest cigar factory in the world at the time. Over the next few decades, skilled ''tabaqueros'' (cigar makers) would roll hundreds of millions of cigars on wooden workbenches set close together in the building's wide, sunlit rolling rooms. After Ybor died in 1896, the building was owned by a succession of other cigar manufacturers and continued to be a productive cigar factory until after

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

, when the industry (and Ybor City in general) entered a long period of decline. Over the next few decades, the buildings were vacant, then were used as gallery and studio space for artists, then converted to a

festival marketplace A festival marketplace is a European-style shopping market in the United States. It is an effort to revitalize downtown areas in major US cities begun in the late 20th century. Festival marketplaces were a leading downtown revitalization strategy ...

called Ybor Square in the mid-1970s. The Ybor Factory building was added to the

U.S. The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country Continental United States, primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., ...

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic v ...

on November 15, 1972. In 2002, the buildings were converted to office space with the exception of a franchise of the

Spaghetti Warehouse Spaghetti Warehouse is an Italian restaurant chain geared towards families with five physical locations in two U.S. states: four in Ohio, one in New York (state). They also operate a to-go only location in Texas. The chain started in 1972 in Dal ...

restaurant, which was located in the former tobacco storage warehouse up to 2016. In 2010, the

Church of Scientology The Church of Scientology is a group of interconnected corporate entities and other organizations devoted to the practice, administration and dissemination of Scientology, which is variously defined as a cult, a scientology as a business, bu ...

bought the building for $7.05 million to consolidate its existing facilities present in Ybor City and

West Tampa West Tampa is one of the oldest neighborhoods within the city limits of Tampa, Florida, United States. It was an independently incorporated city from 1895 until 1925, when it was annexed by Tampa. West Tampa is located west of the Hillsborough ...

Gallery

Image:Yborcigarfactory.jpg, The factory 1916 Image:Jose Marti in Ybor City.jpg,

Jose Marti Jose is the English transliteration Transliteration is a type of conversion of a text from one script to another that involves swapping letters (thus ''trans-'' + '' liter-'') in predictable ways, such as Greek → , Cyrillic → , Gree ...

(center) with cigar workers on the steps of V. M. Ybor's cigar factory, 1893 Image:Tampa Ybor Factory sign01.jpg, Historical marker

References

External links

Florida's Office of Cultural and Historical Programs

Hillsborough County listings

Ybor Factory Building

Great Floridians of Tampa
* {{National Register of Historic Places in Florida Buildings and structures in Tampa, Florida Historic cigar factories Cuban-American culture in Tampa, Florida National Register of Historic Places in Tampa, Florida Historic American Buildings Survey in Florida Spanish-American culture in Tampa, Florida Tobacco buildings in the United States

History

Gallery

See also

References

External links