When Spanish explorers first arrived in the Tampa Bay region in 1528, they encountered a native civilization that had flourished there for at least 3,500 years. Several different tribes dominated the Gulf Coast, including the Tocobaga, the Timucua, the Apalachee, and the Caloosa (also spelled Calusa). It was a Caloosa village called Tanpa (a name meaning "stick of fire") that eventually became known to the Spanish as Tampa. Annihilated by an onslaught of European diseases against which they had no immunity, the various Tampa Bay tribes had all but vanished by 1700. Raiding parties comprised of English colonists from the north and members of other Indian tribes destroyed the few remaining settlements. Desolate and uninhabited, the Tampa Bay region was held briefly by the British in the late 1700s, then once again became a Spanish possession after the American Revolution. In 1821, Spain ceded the Florida territory to the United States for $5 million.
By this time, northern Florida had become a haven for displaced Seminole Indians and runaway black slaves from nearby southern states. Because white settlers were eager to move into the region and grow cotton, the federal government decided to relocate the Indians further south, around Tampa Bay. A fort was established on the eastern shore of the Hillsborough River to house the soldiers sent there to keep an eye on the angry Seminoles. Erected in 1824 and named Fort Brooke (after the army colonel in command), it was the first permanent, modern settlement on the site of present-day Tampa.
The 1830s and 1840s were marked by repeated violent conflicts between the Seminoles and white soldiers and settlers. Although Tampa emerged from the so-called Second Seminole War (1835–1842) as a fledgling town rather than just a frontier outpost, it subsequently endured a variety of setbacks, including further skirmishes with the Seminoles, yellow fever epidemics, and, in 1848, a hurricane-generated tidal wave that leveled the village.
In the 1850s a rebuilt Tampa expanded, and by 1855 it had grown enough to incorporate as a city. After the Third Seminole War (1855–1858) saw most of the Indian population removed to Oklahoma, the town experienced a boom of sorts. An extremely lucrative beef trade with Cuba flourished, as did the related activities of shipping and shipbuilding. During and after the Civil War, however, Tampa, like much of the rest of the South, suffered economic ruin, compounded throughout the 1860s and 1870s by periodic outbreaks of yellow fever.
The 1880s ushered in a dramatic turnaround for the dying city—the discovery of rich phosphate deposits nearby and, more important, the coming of Henry Bradley Plant's Jacksonville, Tampa & Key West Railroad company. Potential new settlers streamed into the city in search of business opportunities. One of these was Cuban cigar manufacturer Vicente Martinez Ybor, who left Key West in 1885 to establish his operations in Tampa; within just a few years, cigars had become the city's trademark, as well as its chief industry.
The next fifty years were marked by continued economic growth for Tampa. At the turn of the century, subzero temperatures forced farmers in the northern part of the state to relocate farther south, Tampa became the new center for the expanding citrus industry. World War I led to a demand for ships that kept Tampa's docks humming with activity. During the early 1920s, land speculators and tourists from the North flocked to the state and gave rise to a building boom in Tampa and the surrounding area. Even after the rest of the Florida real estate market collapsed in 1926, Tampa managed to hold its own. But, like much of the rest of the country, Tampa suffered severe economic setbacks during the Depression of the 1930s. Its number-one industry, cigar manufacturing, went into a sharp decline as product demand decreased and more and more factories became automated; never again would cigar manufacturing figure as prominently in the city's economic makeup.
The growing American involvement in World War II proved to be the stimulus Tampa's paralyzed economy needed. Thousands of troops were stationed in and around the city, and government contracts again revived the shipbuilding industry. But in the 1950s and 1960s Tampa lost residents and businesses to the suburbs, and the downtown area quickly deteriorated. During the early 1970s, government and business united to revive the ailing downtown area and change Tampa's image. After a rocky and unfocused start in the 1960s, Tampa's urban renewal program emerged in the 1970s and 1980s as a carefully and professionally planned alternative to the earlier chaotic approach. Downtown soon became the site of new office buildings, stores, stadiums, convention centers, and condominiums, and the local economy flourished. The city and the surrounding region saw a boom in business expansions and relocations in the 1990s that is only picking up speed today. Today, Tampa proclaims itself a city "where the good life gets better every day"—an urban area on the threshold of changes that will assure it of a vital role in the country's future.
Historical Information: Tampa Bay History Center, 225 South Franklin Street, Tampa FL 33602-5329; telephone (813)228-0097