West Tampa is one of the oldest neighborhoods within the city limits of

Tampa Tampa ( ) is a city on the Gulf Coast of the United States, Gulf Coast of the U.S. state of Florida. Tampa'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 t ...

Florida Florida ( ; ) is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. It borders the Gulf of Mexico to the west, Alabama to the northwest, Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia to the north, the Atlantic ...

, United States. It was an independently incorporated city from 1895 until 1925, when it was annexed by Tampa. West Tampa circa

West Tampa is located west of the Hillsborough River approximately 1 mile from

downtown ''Downtown'' is a term primarily used in American and Canadian English to refer to a city's sometimes commercial, cultural and often the historical, political, and geographic heart. It is often synonymous with its central business district ( ...

. As of the 2000

census A census (from Latin ''censere'', 'to assess') is the procedure of systematically acquiring, recording, and calculating population information about the members of a given Statistical population, population, usually displayed in the form of stati ...

, the district had a population of 22,008. It has consistently been home to one of the highest concentration of Latinos in the city since its founding in 1892.

History

Establishment and early history

West Tampa was founded in 1892 by Scottish immigrant and local attorney Hugh Macfarlane, who bought 200 acres of forested land with the intention of starting a new development by luring some of the cigar factories and cigar workers from

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, mai ...

, a very successful new immigrant community on the northeast side of Tampa. West Tampa's initial growth was stunted by transportation issues. The first cigar factory built in the area was forced to close temporarily because workers refused to ride a ferry across the Hillsborough River to the "wilds" of West Tampa. Macfarlane had built a bridge and connected West Tampa to Tampa's extensive

streetcar A tram (also known as a streetcar or trolley in Canada and the United States) is an urban rail transit in which vehicles, whether individual railcars or multiple-unit trains, run on tramway tracks on urban public streets; some include s ...

line by 1894, spurring a period of tremendous growth. Many of these new residents had not come over from Ybor City; most were Cuban immigrants who settled in West Tampa soon after arriving in the United States. Accordingly, the community was almost exclusivity Cuban during the first several years of its existence. A gradual influx of

Italians Italians (, ) are a European peoples, European ethnic group native to the Italian geographical region. Italians share a common Italian culture, culture, History of Italy, history, Cultural heritage, ancestry and Italian language, language. ...

and

Spaniards Spaniards, or Spanish people, are a Romance-speaking ethnic group native to the Iberian Peninsula, primarily associated with the modern nation-state of Spain. Genetically and ethnolinguistically, Spaniards belong to the broader Southern a ...

, mainly from Ybor City, gradually made the cultural mix of the two communities more similar over time. West Tampa was incorporated as a city on May 18th, 1895 with a population of 2,335, making it the 2nd largest

Hispanic The term Hispanic () are people, Spanish culture, cultures, or countries related to Spain, the Spanish language, or broadly. In some contexts, Hispanic and Latino Americans, especially within the United States, "Hispanic" is used as an Ethnici ...

community in the state. By 1900, it had more inhabitants than

's capital city of

Tallahassee Tallahassee ( ) is the capital city of the U.S. state of Florida. It is the county seat of and the only incorporated municipality in Leon County. Tallahassee became the capital of Florida, then the Florida Territory, in 1824. In 2024, the est ...

and was the second largest city in Hillsborough County, behind only Tampa. The neighboring communities combined to produce more hand-rolled cigars than any other locale in the world during the early 20th century, earning Tampa the nickname "Cigar City". The first

public library A public library is a library, most often a lending library, that is accessible by the general public and is usually funded from public sources, such as taxes. It is operated by librarians and library paraprofessionals, who are also Civil servic ...

in Hillsborough County, the

West Tampa Free Public Library The West Tampa Free Public Library, more recently the West Tampa Branch Library, is a historic building in the West Tampa National Historic District in Tampa, Florida.Howard Avenue in 1914. Construction of the Neo-classical revivalist style brick building was funded with a $17,500 grant from

Andrew Carnegie Andrew Carnegie ( , ; November 25, 1835August 11, 1919) was a Scottish-American industrialist and philanthropist. Carnegie led the expansion of the History of the iron and steel industry in the United States, American steel industry in the late ...

. The West Tampa Library was restored and expanded in 2004 and is still in use.

West Tampa Police Department

During its incorporated life, West Tampa operated the West Tampa Police Department. It was absorbed by the Tampa Police Department in 1925. One officer was killed in its short history. On July 18, 1920, Patrolman Juan Nales and another officer were walking a man they arrested to jail when the suspect attacked. The suspect gained control of Nales's gun and fatally shot him. The suspect was captured after fleeing and subsequently convicted of murder.

Annexation

As the years progressed, the connections between West Tampa and Ybor City grew stronger. Most "Latins" (as Tampa's mix of Spanish, Cuban, and Italian cultures is locally known) had family and friends in both of the neighboring towns. Many people lived in one community and worked in the other. Ybor City's social clubs regularly held large picnics,

baseball Baseball is a bat-and-ball games, bat-and-ball sport played between two team sport, teams of nine players each, taking turns batting (baseball), batting and Fielding (baseball), fielding. The game occurs over the course of several Pitch ...

games, and other events at West Tampa's spacious MacFarlane Park. Some of the clubs built elaborate branch locations for their West Tampa members, further uniting the two increasingly homogeneous districts. The boundaries between West Tampa and "

Anglo Anglo is a prefix indicating a relation to, or descent from England, English culture, the English people or the English language, such as in the term ''Anglosphere''. It is often used alone, somewhat loosely, to refer to people of British d ...

Tampa" also blurred as the larger city grew west and south until its

suburb A suburb (more broadly suburban area) is an area within a metropolitan area. They are oftentimes where most of a metropolitan areas jobs are located with some being predominantly residential. They can either be denser or less densely populated ...

s bumped against the edges of West Tampa. The process concluded in 1925, when West Tampa was formally annexed by the city of Tampa.

Neighborhood

As Ybor City faded and emptied out after

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

, many of its residents moved to West Tampa, making it the largest predominantly Latin neighborhood in town. While the same factors that destroyed Ybor City's cigar industry also affected West Tampa, the latter community had enough economic variety to survive when the cigar factories either became totally mechanized or shut down altogether. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, West Tampa received another large influx of Cuban immigrants as they fled Castro's revolution. With very few jobs remaining in the cigar industry by that era, new arrivals found work in various other sectors. As of 2017, the neighborhood has many

Colombian cuisine Colombian cuisine is a culinary tradition of six main regions within Colombia: Insular, Caribbean, Pacific, Andean, Orinoco, and Amazonian. Colombian cuisine varies regionally and is influenced by Indigenous peoples in Colombia, Indigenous Colom ...

and small Cuban and Puerto Rican eateries and ethnic markets, mostly along main roads such as Columbus Drive, Armenia Avenue, Howard Avenue, Main Street, and Tampa Bay Boulevard. Most of the large brick cigar factory buildings still stand, but none are still used for their original purpose. Some have been renovated and remodeled for office space and other uses, while others have been vacant for years. A few cigars are still rolled in smaller shops and storefronts. While poverty and urban decay have been problematic issues in West Tampa since the 1970s, the district has garnered renewed interest and appreciation for its history and culture. The area saw increasing levels of investment, restoration, and new construction beginning in the 2000s. Redevelopment stalled during the

Great Recession The Great Recession was a period of market decline in economies around the world that occurred from late 2007 to mid-2009.

, but resumed several years later with several projects including new apartments, renovation and overhaul of Julian Lane Waterfront Park, and demolition of several city blocks of older

public housing Public housing, also known as social housing, refers to Subsidized housing, subsidized or affordable housing provided in buildings that are usually owned and managed by local government, central government, nonprofit organizations or a ...

to be replaced with new townhome construction.

Description

The historical boundaries of West Tampa are the Hillsborough River and Rome Avenue to the east, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd (formerly Buffalo Ave.) to the north, Kennedy Blvd. (formerly Grand Central Ave.) to the south, and Dale Mabry Highway to the west. The West Tampa Historic District encompasses much of this area, and Interstate 275, built in the 1960s, runs through the approximate center of the neighborhood. The land area of the district is about 10 square miles (about 26 km²).

Areas within West Tampa

Distinct areas within the West Tampa district are Bowman Heights, Marina Club, Northeast Macfarlane, and Old West Tampa.

References

External links

West Tampa Chamber of Commerce
* {{Authority control Neighborhoods in Tampa, Florida History of Tampa, Florida Cuban-American history Cuban-American culture in Tampa, Florida Italian-American culture in Tampa, Florida Spanish-American culture in Tampa, Florida Spanish communities in the United States Former municipalities in Florida