The Montgomery advertiser., 1909-01-13
The Tropical Toyn of Tampa
Hy Frederic ]. Haslin.

Tampa. Fla. Jan. 12.-Its citizens delight to call 1t rtypicai tropical Tampa" One should see 1t through the blue rings blown in the smoke of a Tampa-made cigaf under the en- chantment of . moonlit night on Tampa Bay, with the soft summer zephyrs laughing at calendar which says the month Is January. Under such cir cumstances 1t is not at all difficult to agree with the enthusiastic estimate of this thriving city which is made by It's own people. The metropolis of the West Coast of Florida, situated In a more beautiful place than any of the Florida resorts. commanding the finest fishing fields in the world, Tampa is delightful place of sojourn.
 But the people of Tampa do not fleece tourists for a living. In fact, the tourist. while he is made welcome. is given but small consideration by the business interests of the city. It's business Is to make clear. Havana ci- gars and it attends to that business. Tampa manufactures more clear Hava- na cigars. than any other city in the world. not even excepting Havana. The tobacco Is brought from the province of Pinar del Rio in Cuba, the home of the famous vuelta abajo leaf. The la borers who make them are Spanish born and Cuban-bred, men to whom a perfect cigar is the acme of all art. Cuban tobacco and Spanish skill are combined and compounded under Amer ican direction in an American city by American methods.
 The tariff duty places imported ci- gars beyond the means of the ordinary American citizen. Tampa cigars are so much cheaper than the imported variety that they have the control of the market. The same thing is true. of course, of Key West cigars. which are made under precisely the same con ditions. but Tampa has distanced Key s West in the quantity of the output of its factories and therefore Is entitled to the credit of being the center of the cigar industry of the United States.
 For more than 500 years there has been a town on this site which has been known by the name of Fampo or Tampa. It was more than Q hunoreo years old when De Soto came here ana gave Tampa Bay the name of the Bay of the Holy Spirit. It existed as an Indian town for three centuries after De Soto passed through It. It was center of the conflict between the army of the United States and the warning Seminole Indians seventy years ago. By its exceptional advantages as mar bor the Bay of Tampa attracted the railroad builders, and the first trans
  terminus here. Its beauty attracted the tourist and great hotels were ouilt. But the cigar business came here by accident, and it is to that accident that Tampa owes its present commerciai im- portance.
 There was a Spanish mercantile house in New York which made spe. cialty of importing food products: IL found that the demand for guava 1eliy ha the QnnnlX. Tn0 head of the house, a Spanish born gen tieman of great learning and ability, heard that there were vast expanses of euaya thicketa on the west coast or Florida which needed only someone to gather the fruit. He set out for Tam pa Bay, going by sea and touching at Key West. At Key West ne inter ested two Spanish cigar manufactur- CTS in his project and they went with him to Tampa.
 The Euava business turned out 10 be a disappointment. It required but a few days for the New York ousi- ness men to determine that an tn- vestment in guava lands would prove disastrous. But he was delighted witn the climate and with the location or the city. His Key West friends were complaining of the fact that their bus mess was Isolated, that they were out of touch with the market, that 1t was impossible to build up a great indus try on an ocean island. Why not make cigars in Tampa?" the New York man asked them. They began to look the place over with this suggestion In mind. but met with rebuffs from some of the business men who had their heads turned toward oranges and tour ists. Just as they were about to de- part for Mobile. one man came to the point and offered them land upon which to build their factories.
 That is how Tampa became the clear Havana cigar emporium of the world how Key West lost its supremacy, and how Mobile, by mere chance, missed getting a rich industry. The first fac tories which came to Tampa were es- tablished by men whose names are now known wherever there is an eye to read the label on cigar box. How these factories have grown. how some of them passed under the control of the trust. how others are still fight ing as independents, how Tampa over came a trade prejudice against Its name, how strikes and other troubles were met and settled. all these things are now a part of the peculiar history | of the cigar trade. It may be interesting. even to those not in the trade, to study the Tampa method of getting rid of troublesome