Even during Florida's territorial period Key West had achieved the highest mean perÊcapitaÊincome of any settlement in Florida, based principally on the thriving market for goods salvaged from the navigationally treacherous Keys area. In 1868 an event occurred that led to a surpassing of even this promising start, for in that year the Ten Years' War for independence from Spain flared in Cuba. The resulting turbulence prompted much of Havana's cigar manufacturing to migrate to nearby Key West. Havana cigar manufacturers who were subsequently to figure in Florida's cigar industry, like Vincente Martinez Ybor, also decided to leave Havana in 1869 for other reasons: tariffs and regulations imposed by the Spanish government; the American tariff on cigars; and La Liga, the labor union formed by cigar workers in Havana. By the end of 1869 some 6,000 Cuban cigar makers had already migrated to Key West, and in the following years Key West gradually became the preeminent high-quality cigar manufacturing city in the world. By 1884 Key West, with 80 cigar factories and an annual output of 42 million cigars, had become the largest city in Florida.
A second major geographical shift of the cigar industry, this time from Key West to the new city of Tampa, began in 1886. Although the Havana cigar manufacturers had escaped union activity by their move to Key West, skilled cigar workers began to organize almost immediately. Disputes between labor and factory owners increased, leading to strikes. Then in 1886 a fire destroyed many buildings, including Ybor's factory. Ybor's decision to move was also prompted by inducements offered by Tampa's new Board of Trade. A factory town, becoming known as YborÊCity, was erected beyond the northeast margin of Tampa in 1886. As other cigar factories arose in Ybor City and in West Tampa, the city became the world's leading cigar producer, although production also continued in Key West.
The renown of "clear Havana" cigars manufactured in Tampa and Key West (the term clear referring to the light color of the tobacco leaf) stemmed both from the tobacco used and the skill of the cigar makers. The best clear Havana cigars were made from tobacco noted for its flavor, smooth burning and easy blending qualities that come exclusively from the Vuelta Abajo district of Cuba. This tobacco was in turn transformed into many combinations of cigar size, shape, color, and style by highly skilled cigar makers using only a wedge-shaped, thin, steel knife and a hard apple-wood platform. So successful economically were the workers that they established large social clubhouses containing libraries, auditoriums, theaters and even a hospital. The hand-made cigar industry in Florida began to decline in the 1920s as smoking fashions changed and as machines were introduced.
