This Tampa cultural center sits where a $4,000 train station rescue created the Cigar Capital of the World

Wikimedia Commons/Lewis Wickes Hine

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Ybor’s Last-Minute Rescue & a Cigar Empire

Tampa’s future hung by a thread in 1885.

Vicente Martinez Ybor sat in the train station, ready to leave town for good. His deal to buy land from John T. Lesley had just crashed over a $4,000 gap…

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