Tampa, Florida

===1880s economic prosperity===
[[File:Port Tampa Inn.jpg|right|thumb|Port Tampa Inn, with rail line in front of hotel, c. 1900]]

In the mid-1880s, Tampa's fortunes took several sudden turns for the better. First, [[phosphate]] was discovered in the [[Bone Valley]] region southeast of Tampa in 1883. The mineral, vital for the production of [[fertilizer]]s and other products, was soon being shipped from the Port of Tampa in great volume. Tampa is still a major phosphate exporter.

The discovery of phosphate, the arrival of Plant's railroad, and the founding of Ybor City and West Tampa—all in the mid-1880s—were crucial to Tampa's development. The once-struggling village of Tampa became a bustling [[boomtown]] almost overnight and had grown into one of the largest cities in Florida by 1900.<ref name="Lastra, Frank 2006"/>

====Plant's railroad====
[[Henry B. Plant]]'s narrow-gauge [[South Florida Railroad]] reached Tampa and its port in late 1883, finally connecting the small town to the nation's railroad system after years of efforts by local leaders. Previously, Tampa's overland transportation links had consisted of sandy roads stretching across the Florida countryside. Plant's railroad made it much easier to get goods in and out of the Tampa Bay area. Phosphate and [[commercial fishing]] exports could be sent north by rail,<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.baysoundings.com/sum05/phosphate4.html |title=About Bone Valley |publisher=Baysoundings.com |access-date=April 17, 2011 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110707214707/http://www.baysoundings.com/sum05/phosphate4.html |archive-date=July 7, 2011}}</ref> and many new products were brought into the Tampa market, along with the first tourists.
[[File:Yborcigarfactory.jpg|thumb|right|[[Vicente Martinez Ybor|Ybor's]] first cigar factory c. 1900]]

====Ybor's cigars====
{{See also|History of Ybor City}}
[[File:Lewis Hine, Cigarmakers, Tampa, Florida, 1909.jpg|thumb|right|Rolling cigars, 1909. Photo by [[Lewis Hine]].]]

The new railroad link enabled another important industry to come to Tampa. In 1885, the Tampa Board of Trade enticed [[Vicente Martinez Ybor]] to move his [[cigar]] manufacturing operations to Tampa from [[Key West, Florida|Key West]]. Proximity to [[Cuba]] made importation of "clear Havana tobacco" easy by sea, and Plant's railroad made shipment of finished cigars to the rest of the US market easy by land.<ref name="Lastra, Frank 2006">Lastra, Frank. ''Ybor City: The Making of a Landmark Town''. 2006. University of Tampa Press.</ref>

Since Tampa was still a small town at the time (population less than 5,000), Ybor built hundreds of small houses around his factory to accommodate the immediate influx of mainly Cuban and Spanish cigar workers. [[Ybor City]]'s factories rolled their first cigars in 1886, and many different cigar manufacturers moved their operations to town in ensuing years. Many [[Italians|Italian]] and a few Eastern European [[Jews|Jewish]] immigrants arrived starting in the late 1880s, opening businesses and shops that catered to cigar workers. By 1900, over 10,000 immigrants had moved to the neighborhood. Several thousand more Cuban immigrants built [[West Tampa]], another cigar-centric suburb founded a few years later by Hugh MacFarlane. Between them, two "Latin" communities combined to exponentially expand Tampa's population, economic base, and tax revenues, as Tampa became the "Cigar Capital of the World".<ref>Mormino, Gary. ''The Immigrant World of Ybor City''. [[University Press of Florida]]</ref>
[[File:TampaFranklinStreetNorth.jpg|thumb|right|Franklin Street, looking north past the [[old Hillsborough County Courthouse]], Tampa c. 1910s–1920s]]