A small town seized the north end of Fort Brooke, and on November 24, 1831, the government established a post office, giving the new city a name: Tampa Bay. Three years later, the post office and the city abandoned the name “Bay” and were renamed Tampa. * January 18, 1824: Colonel Brooke, along with James Gadsden and four companies of infantry, arrived in Tampa Bay. January 18, 1849:14 men vote unanimously to establish Tampa Village with a form of trustee government. Tampa Bay has a long and colorful history (it longs for Florida anyway), and much of it is waiting for you to discover it.
Here are some things you probably never knew about Cigar City. In 1920, Tampa was also at the forefront of communication and entertainment, launching the first authorized radio station in Florida (the WDAE, which is still in operation today) and broadcasting the country's first full religious service. In late 1861, the Union Navy established a blockade near the mouth of Tampa Bay as part of the general Anaconda Plan, which sought to isolate the Confederacy from outside sources of money and supplies. As inland farms and ranches recovered, the small port of Tampa resumed shipping cattle, oranges and other products from Florida, primarily to New Orleans, Key West and Cuba, which was going through the Ten Years' War.
The South Florida Plant narrow-gauge railroad reached Tampa and its port, connecting the small city to the country's rail system after years of efforts by local leaders. The entrances to Tampa Bay and the Port of Charlotte are hidden by the presence of barrier islands, and their location and the names applied to them were a source of confusion for explorers, surveyors and cartographers from the 16th to the 18th century. Tampa's population went from less than 800 residents in 1880 to more than 15,000 in 1900, making it one of the largest and most prosperous cities in Florida. The NFL's Tampa Bay Buccaneers and the NHL's Tampa Bay Lightning call Tampa home, while the MLB Tampa Bay Rays play across the bay in St.
Attempting to stop this, the Union gunboat USS Sagamore sailed through Tampa Bay to bomb Fort Brooke under the command of John William Pearson and the surrounding city of Tampa. In 1885, the Tampa Board of Trade convinced Vicente Martínez Ybor to move his cigar-manufacturing operations to Tampa from Key West. Plant extensively developed port facilities and promoted tourism, building the luxurious Moorish-style Tampa Bay hotel in 1891. The Tampa Bay Rowdies of the original North American Soccer League were the first major sports franchise in the area, which began playing in 1975 at Tampa Stadium. The Tampa Bay area has long been the home of nationally competitive amateur baseball and has been home to preseason and minor league teams for more than a century. Previously, Tampa's ground transportation links consisted of sandy highways that stretched across the Florida countryside.
Formerly, the area was home to many former Florida State League teams that no longer exist, most notably the Tampa Smokers, St. Until the entry of the United States into World War I, Tampa would be a stronghold of the Socialist Party in Florida. The Spanish explorer Ponce de León first arrived in the Tampa Bay area in 1513, but the Spanish focused their attention on settling in eastern Florida and leaving western areas. Soon, Tampa Bay went from being a small city to a large metropolis and became a magnet for Cuban, Spanish, German, Italian and Jewish immigrants.
