Vicente Martinez Ybor
(1818-1896)

Died aged c. 78

Vicente Martinez Ybor, born in 1818, was a major figure in the founding and development of Ybor City. He participated in negotiations with the Tampa Board of Trade in 1885 and led efforts to purchase land adjacent to Tampa for the cigar industry and its accompanying community. In addition to building his factory, Ybor created a system for the workers to buy their houses. He built the first hotel in Ybor City, El Pasaje. He organized the Ybor Land & Improvement Company, which encouraged entrepreneurs to establish businesses in Ybor City. The company invested in the Florida Brewing Company and the Tampa Gas Company, provided more than $250,000 to grade streets, erect streetlights and enforce sanitary measures. Vicente Martinez Ybor died in 1896.

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Vicente Martinez Ybor (7 September 1818 – 14 December 1896), was a Spanish entrepreneur who first became a noted industrialist and cigar manufacturer in Cuba, then Key West, and finally Tampa, Florida. Martinez Ybor is best known for his founding the immigrant-populated cigar manufacturing town of Ybor City just outside Tampa, Florida in 1885. It was annexed by Tampa in 1887 and was a major factor in the community's rapid development from a small town into one of the largest cities in Florida and, for a time, the world's leader in cigar manufacturing. In addition to his Principe de Gales line of Cuban cigars, he founded many other businesses in Tampa including an insurance company, street paving, gas stations, a streetcar line, and Tampa's first brewery. For his workers, he built and sold hundreds of affordable homes, brought doctors to the area, and converted his original cigar factory into a social hall and theater for Tampa's first mutual aid society, El Centro Español de Tampa. His business interests were integral to the rapid expansion of the Port of Tampa and Tampa's overall economy. When Martinez Ybor died in 1896, much of Tampa closed down to attend his funeral. He has been honored with a statue in Ybor City and a bust on the Tampa Riverwalk.

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