Overview

A century ago, here in the Latin Quarter of Tampa, cigarmaker Vincente Martinez Ybor began an industry that brought this city worldwide renown—those famed Tampa cigars. Here, too, poet and patriot Jose Marti, the hero of Cuban liberation, plotted and pleaded for his cause. History surrounds you in Ybor City where one thing seems hardly to have changed at all in a century—a strong sense of pride in community and culture. You can learn more about all that in this museum where the past is chronicled in yellowing pages, spidery script and cigar bands. It's poignant, stirring and just a little sad. Ybor City's far from sad these days, however. It's in the midst of a renaissance, the likes of which it hasn't seen for many years. Now the streets rock on weekends, and the fiesta goes on and on and on, well into the wee hours.