Last month I was in Tampa for a morning work gathering, which meant I had the afternoon free for a bit of exploring. So I wandered over to Ybor City. My only other visit to the popular entertainment district was at night for a Todd Snider concert several years ago.

I was eager to tour this district during daylight hours. The historic enclave started as a cigar company town in the 1880s. Vincente Martinez-Ybor was a visionary Spanish cigar maker who had moved his factory to Key West from Cuba in 1869. Fifteen years later, he was again looking for a larger base for his operations.

He needed a location with a humid climate, good transportation, and plenty of vacant land. In 1884 Henry Plant’s newly completed rail line to Tampa provided an overland route for goods, the bay offered multiple shipping options, and the leaders of the burgeoning town were eager to welcome industry.

In 1885 Ybor started with 40 acres but he quickly purchased more land to provide housing for his growing immigrant workforce. Most of the first wave of boncheros (or bunchers, as cigar-rollers are known) had followed him from Spain and Cuba.

By all accounts, Ybor took good care of his workers. In addition to the casitas, he created social clubs and theaters, set up medical facilities, operated a street car line, and built Tampa’s first brewery.

Seemingly overnight, Ybor City boomed. Other cigar manufacturers noted Ybor’s success and followed suit, bringing immigrants from Sicily and elsewhere in Europe. For 50 years it was a thriving, multi-cultural melting pot. From the 1880s until the 1930s, these factories produced cigars in the hundreds of millions and the town became known as Cigar City.

The Great Depression brought that all to screeching halt. The ensuing 50 years were marked by rapid decline as factories shuttered and workers dispersed. In the late 1980s, the historic warehouses and the workman’s bungalows began to attract artists and musicians to the area. Thankfully, their renewed interest helped save many of the buildings from the wrecking ball.

It felt like a trip back in time as I strolled the brick streets: historic architectural elements caught my eye, murals provided bright pops of color, and music flowed from the doorways of bars and clubs. Chickens strutted and roosters crowed. I caught snippets of conversations spoken in Spanish, Italian, Greek, and French. I watched buncheros sort tobacco leaves and roll cigars (see video at bottom of this post). Even though it was the middle of the afternoon in the middle of the week it was still a vibrant area.

As I wandered along, a funky store sign caught my eye, Dysfunctional Grace. Of course, I had to check that out. The upstairs space was neatly packed with all the morbid oddities one would expect from a curiosity shop: fortune telling supplies, taxidermied animals, hair wreaths, a used embalming table, shrunken heads, and even some surgical implants that the former owners no longer needed.

My Aunt Polly would love this store! Though I was fascinated, I only made one small purchase. I did have a fun conversation with Grace, the owner. She said “I’m learning to make shrunken heads but not from real people, because that’s illegal.” I replied, “That’s a damn shame because I have a list of people.” We both laughed about that.*

 By then, it was time for a little refresher so I popped into the Tampa Bay Brewing Company for some hops. It felt like I had just taken a mini-vacation, what a great way to spend an afternoon!

*I do not, in fact, have any such list. It was just a funny thing to say.