Ybor City, Where Cigars are King

Our day started very early this morning for our trip to Tampa.  This 100-mile trip, one way, is a little farther than we generally like to travel for a day trip, but we had the opportunity to see Gene’s brother and sister-in-law so we made an exception.  They are staying in the Naples area for the winter and actually had a longer drive than we did.

The brothers had arranged to meet at Cracker Barrel at 1 o’clock.  We didn’t want to drive that far and not try to see something else of interest, so we left early and stopped by the community of Ybor City before meeting Doug and Cheryl for lunch.  Ybor, pronounced e-bor, is commonly referred to as Tampa’s Latin Quarter.

Ybor City Museum

Although founded in the late 1880s by Vicente Martinez Ybor, a Cuban immigrant who came to the Tampa area to open a cigar manufacturing business, the community quickly became a center of ethnic diversity with Spanish, Italians, Jews, and Germans joining the mix.  Thousands of Cuban cigar workers fled Cuba in the late 1860s to avoid being drafted into the Spanish army.  After a brief stop in Miami, they eventually ended up in what became Ybor City.  During the height of the production years, there were some 12,000 cigar workers hand rolling cigars in Ybor City every day.

A cigar workers station

Today, we stopped in at the Ybor City Museum.  It is a very small museum, but makes a huge tribute to the various cultural groups which made up this historic community.  The museum is housed in what was originally a bakery operated by Francisco Ferlita, a Sicilian.  Francisco and his descendants baked Cuban bread in this yellow brick building until 1973.

Company housing, restored, of course

We spent as much time as we had in the museum so had to trot on back to the truck.  However, we wanted to see Ybor City’s main street.  We hurried along making only one other stop--at the art gallery of Arnold Martinez.  Mr. Martinez greeted us as we went in the front door and explained his unique technique.  He creates his paints using coffee, tobacco, tea, wine, and beer.  It is quite unusual and, as you might expect, is all done in shades of brown and black.  Interesting.  His card says he is “painting with the tastes of Ybor.”  Well, I guess so--Cuban coffee and tobacco, Italian wine, German beer.

We got to the Cracker Barrel by the appointed time for a wonderful lunch and visit with Doug and Cheryl.  After lunch, we went next door to the gigantic Lazydays RV dealership.  Doug called it window shopping.  We looked in as many RVs as the rest of the afternoon would allow.  Fortunately, we didn’t find anything we couldn’t live without.

After saying our goodbyes, Gene and I headed north while Doug and Cheryl started on their longer journey back to Naples.  A very busy day, but a very enjoyable one, especially the short visit with family.