| 1820 |
A natural spring near Ybor City is used by Fort Brooke troops. It soon becomes known as Government Spring. An historic marker, at the intersection of 13th Street and Fifth Avenue, marks the approximate site of the spring.
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| 1885 |
Vicente Martinez Ybor and Ignacio Haya decide to build cigar factories in a scrub area northeast of Tampa. Martinez Ybor purchases 40 acres of land and Haya purchases 10. The area is soon known as Ybor City.
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| March 26, 1886 |
Haya opens Factory #1.
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| 1887 |
Yellow fever epidemic debilitates Tampa and Ybor City.
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| Late 1880s |
Ruperto and Paulina Pedroso arrive in Tampa.
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| September 7, 1891 |
El Centro Español is chartered.
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| November 1891 |
Jose Martí visits Tampa for the first time. He delivers his famous "Para Cuba Que Sufre" speech on the steps of the Ybor factory. In all, Marti would visit Tampa 21 times.
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| 1892 |
Electric streetcar service linked downtown Tampa, Ybor City, West Tampa and Ballast Point.
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| April 22, 1892 |
West Tampa area first surveyed and platted.
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| April 1894 |
L'Unione Italiana founded.
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| 1895 |
Passage to Havana, Cuba from Port Tampa on the Plant steamers Mascotte and Olivette cost $25.
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| February 25, 1895 |
Cuban Revolution begins. The message to start the revolution was sent to Cuban insurrectos via West Tampa, where it was rolled into a cigar to be smuggled to Cuba.
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| May 18, 1895 |
West Tampa incorporated as a city.
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| May 19, 1895 |
Jose Martí killed in battle in Oriente Province, Cuba.
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| 1896 |
Florida Brewing Company, Florida's first brewery, is incorporated. The brewery uses water from the nearby Government Spring.
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| October 10, 1899 |
Interracial El Club Nacional Cubano founded. White Cubans and Afro-Cuban soon separated, though.
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| May 1899 |
Workers in the Ybor-Manrara factory go on strike after scales are introduced in the factory.
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| 1900 |
La Sociedad de Libre Pensadores de Martí-Maceo founded in the Pedroso home.
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| July 26, 1901 |
Beginning of a four month general strike of the cigar industry. The walk-out, orchestrated by the union La Resistencia, was broken when the Citizens' Committee, formed by prominent Tampans, resorted to vigilante violence.
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| April 1, 1902 |
El Centro Asturiano founded.
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| April 4, 1904 |
A fire, which began in the Mugge bowling alley on Howard Avenue, consumes one hundred and thirty buildings in West Tampa, including homes, businesses and cigar factories.
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| March 1, 1908 |
Fire destroys a 17 block area in Ybor City. It is the worst fire in Tampa's history.
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| July 1910 |
Another general strike paralyzes the cigar industry. Again, vigilante committees composed of Tampa and West Tampa's prominent citizens, uses violence to force cigar makers back to work, including the lynching of two Italian men in West Tampa.
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| 1912 |
West Tampa, with a population of over 10,000 people, is Florida's 5th largest city.
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| 1914 |
Centro Espanol opens two new clubhouses, one on Seventh Avenue in Ybor City, the other on Howard Avenue in West Tampa.
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| April 8, 1918 |
Another destructive fire tears through West Tampa, destroying over 100 buildings.
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| 1921 |
Fourth of July Cafe opens in West Tampa.
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| 1922 |
Victoriano Manteiga and Dr. José Avellanal begin publishing La Gaceta.
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| January 1925 |
West Tampa annexed to the City of Tampa.
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| 1933 |
Lectores removed from Tampa's cigar factories. Workers go on strike, but they are unsuccessful.
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| 1940s |
World War II takes workers from an already slumping industry. Machines, introduced in the 1920s, become further ingrained in the factories. Cigarettes are sent to both war fronts, addicting hundreds of thousands of soldiers, and in the process turning them away from cigars.
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| 1948 |
Memorial established to Jose Martí in Ybor City.
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| November 1955 |
Fidel Castro comes to Tampa. Representatives of the Cuban Club and the Italian Club refuse use of their buildings for a meeting with his supporters. Castro speaks to a crowd of 300 supporters, police officers and FBI agents at the CIO building on Broadway (Seventh Avenue). Castro was interviewed by the Tampa Tribune, WFLA TV (Channel 8) and Spanish radio station WALT.
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| February 3, 1962 |
President John F. Kennedy bans trade and travel between Cuba and the United States. Further debilitates the already stagnant cigar industry.
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| 1960s |
Tampa's leaders introduce Urban Renewal to the area, including Ybor City. Hundreds of buildings, mostly homes, are demolished to make room for large-scale construction projects--some will not be replaced until the 1990s. Interstate 4 cut through the northern end of Ybor City during this decade, as well, causing more demolition of homes and cigar factories. Artists begin to move into Ybor, occupying long-empty buildings.
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| 1970s |
Interstate 275 is constructed through West Tampa, contributing to the degradation of the surrounding neighborhood.
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| 1980s |
Beginning of Guavaween and a concerted preservation movement in Ybor City.
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| 1990 |
Centro Asturiano Hospital closes.
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| 1990s |
Both Centro Espanol buildings see new life. The West Tampa structure is purchased by the Urban League and renovated for use as their headquarters?, while in Ybor City the clubhouse is the center of a new commercial development called Centro Ybor.
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