BACK TO MAIN PAGE
ABOUT TAMPA BAY FLORIDA - History of Tampa
Around 1521 Native tribes called their fishing village by the bay Tanpa, which meant
"sticks of fire. Maps made by the early explorers, began spelling tanpa.... Tampa.
The search for the fountain of youth began just south of Tampa Bay with Ponce de
Leon. Around the spring of 1539 Hernando de Soto sailed into the Tampa Bay area to search
for gold. After that, the area was left largely untouched for 200 years.
A Dutch cartographer, Bernard Romans, gave the name Hillsborough to the river, county and
upper arm of Tampa Bay in 1772, in honor of Lord Hillsborough, secretary of state for the
Colonies. The United States purchased Florida from Spain in 1821. Three years later, Fort
Brooke attracted traders to what is now downtown Tampa and enabled the settlement to
become the town of Tampa in 1855. Meanwhile, in 1834 Hillsborough was organized as
Florida's 19th county and was a sprawling area that included what is now Pinellas, Polk,
Manatee, Sarasota, Charlotte, De Soto, Hardee and Highlands counties - but despite the
size, its population only numbered 836.
Then a man named Henry B. Plant came to town. He extended the railroad to Tampa in 1884
and started a steamship line from Tampa to Key West to Havana, Cuba. In 1891, Plant
further boosted the area with the opening of the Tampa Bay Hotel. The hotel cost $3
million to build and furnish and attracted entertainers, sports figures and dignitaries
from around the world.
When the United States declared war on Spain in 1898, Tampa was the port of embarkation
for troops headed to Cuba. A colorful colonel named Theodore (Teddy) Roosevelt organized
his "Rough Riders" at the Tampa encampment.
With the opening of the Tampa Bay Hotel, the city's attention was turned to a sparsely
populated area west of the Hillsborough River. In 1886, O.H. Platt purchased 20 acres of
land across the Hillsborough River creating Tampa's first subdivision, Hyde Park. Platt
named the area after his hometown Hyde Park, Illinois. During the land boom between 1910
and 1925, this residential area became home to many prominent citizens.
Don Vicente Martinez Ybor, an influential cigar manufacturer and Cuban exile, moved his
cigar business from Key West to a palmetto-covered area east of Tampa in 1885. The
following year the first cigar factory opened and more Spanish cigar manufacturers began
moving their factories and workers to Tampa. The Spanish, Italian, German and Cuban
workers who settled here to work in the cigar industry created a strong, vivacious Latin
community known as Ybor City (pronounced EE-bore). Nearly 12,000 people worked in more
than 200 factories making Ybor City the "Cigar Capital of the World." That
reputation endured until the emergence of Fidel Castro and the embargo on Cuban tobacco.
Now designated as one of three National Historic Landmark districts in Florida, Ybor City
is a mixture of historic buildings, artisan galleries, shops and nightclubs.
The airline industry was born in the Tampa Bay area when Tony Jannus piloted the world's
first regularly scheduled commercial flight from St. Petersburg to Tampa in 1914. During
World Wars I and II, Tampa became a shipbuilding center. World War II also brought the
opening of a major military post, MacDill Air Force Base, which today headquarters the
U.S. Operations command.
Today, Tampa is as much a multi-cultural city as ever with a thriving and powerful
Hispanic population that represents all different Latin American countries. In all,
approximately 10% of Tampa's population are Latino and one recent study reported that one
out of every three people in Tampa bears a Hispanic surname. Tampa Bay is such a
multi-cultural hotbed that the area was named one of the five most diverse, integrated
urban areas in the country by the U.S. Census Bureau.
BACK TO MAIN PAGE
visitors convention bureau
|
