Tampa began as a small settlement beside a US Army base built to keep an eye on the Seminoles in the 1820s. In the 1880s the railroad arrived, and the Hillsborough River on which the city stands was dredged to allow seagoing vessels to dock. Tampa became a booming port, simultaneously acquiring a major tobacco industry as thousands of Cubans moved north from Key West to the new cigar factories of neighboring Ybor City.

The Depression ended the economic surge, but the port remained one of the busiest in the country and tempered Tampa's postwar decline. Little seems to stand in the way of Tampa's continued emergence as a forward-thinking and financially secure community

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