For many years Native Americans were the sole inhabitants of the Tampa Bay area. (Tampa is a Native American word meaning "sticks of fire.") Spanish explorers Juan Ponce de Leon, Panfilo de Narvaez, and Hernando de Soto passed through here in the mid-1500s, but the U.S. Army and the first settlers didn't arrive until 1824. The town remained slow and sleepy, growing to about 1,500 residents by the early 1880s. But in 1884 railroad magnate Henry Plant built a narrow-gauge rail extension to the Hillsborough River, which provided access to new areas and a conduit for goods and materials from the river to town. Plant also built several beautiful hotels along the rails to attract visitors---and they came in great numbers. His Tampa Bay Hotel, built in 1891, is now a museum and part of the University of Tampa.

In 1866 another important Tampa figure arrived from Key West. Vincente Martinez Ybor brought with him thousands of Cubans to make cigars in his cigar factory in what is now Ybor City. By the 1890s this factory employed almost 20 percent of the town's residents. Though the cigar factory no longer operates, the Cuban influence does, and Ybor City has been reborn as Tampa's favorite Latin-flavored entertainment and dining district, with fashionable galleries, nightclubs, and restaurants replacing the lofts where Cubans once rolled tobacco leaves.

The Spanish-American War was good to Tampa, sparking an economic momentum that has seldom abated since then. Today booming Tampa is the center of the second-largest metropolitan area in Florida, with a population of more than 2 million. It is a cultural center as well as a business center, with good theater, concerts, and museums. The U.S. Operations Command maintains a military presence at Tampa's MacDill Air Force Base.

Though international banking and communications firms have set up shop in the gleaming, glass skyscrapers of downtown Tampa, funding an urban resurgence, most of Tampa's real industry is centered on Tampa Bay, which serves as a major shipping center for locally mined phosphates and locally caught shrimp. A pleasure cruise line also operates out of the bay. The city has a few theme parks, which the kids will enjoy.