Blog

Well, bubba.  It is pronounced "yee-bor>"

Ybor is named after the guy who founded the city and the cigar industry in Tampa back in the 1890's.

His name was Vincente Ybor.

He was born in Cuba, migrated to Key West where he was big into cigars.

Then, shrewdly, he found out about all this vacant, fallow land near the water in Tampa.  It was weedy, snake-infested, just nasty land, nobody wanted to live there.

He bought it all up for a song and decided to found his own little city there.

He brought up the cigar industry from Key West to Tampa and named his little enclave, Ybor City.

Ol' Vincente was one smart Cuban dude.

He owned the freshwater spring there.  He owned the ice house.  He owned the bank.  He owned a gazillion warehouses to store tobacco in.  He owned all the cigar factory buildings.  He built housing for the cigar workers.  Little cottages called casitas.

He founded his own little empire in Ybor and prospered.

So, for whatever reason how they pronounce it--the "Yb" sound comes off like a "Yee."

Ergo, Ybor.

Ellen and I live in a hundred year old house there, one block off the main drag.  We are only the third owners of this house.

Interestingly, our house is the subject of a very important crime that happened in the 1930's.

It involved some drugs, alcohol and murder.

But, that is another story for another time.

Aloha, Nels.