Born in Valencia, Spain, V.M. Ybor went to Cuba as a young man where he worked his way from stock clerk to cigar manufacturer by age 40.  Noting that Tampa had steamship and rail lines by 1885, Ybor and a consortium of Cuban “cigar barons” planned to evade heavy Spanish taxes on the tobacco trade by moving it to Florida.  Ybor purchased 44 acres of land two miles from the still-struggling city of Tampa and created a planned urban development to produce cigars.  Home to thousands of immigrant workers, the town – named Ybor City- was the economic mainstay of the Tampa Bay area for many decades.  A naturalized U.S. citizen at his death, Ybor was intended for burial in Havana, but time, family wishes and politics intervened.  Ybor remains at Oaklawn, along with one of his grandsons.

Please note: This plot is in the St. Louis Cemetery, which is operated by the Catholic Diocese of St. Petersburg and adjoins Oaklawn Cemetery.    

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