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Article: Tampa: Economy
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- Cities of the United States
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2006 Thomson Gale. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Tampa: Economy
Major Industries and Commercial Activity
Early in the twentieth century, Tampa was unquestionably a one-industry town. From the late 1880s through the 1930s, cigar manufacturing and related activities
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primarily box construction and lithography
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dominated the economy. Several hundred competing firms annually turned out well over 100 million hand-rolled examples of the city's bestknown product.
The current story of Tampa, however, is quite different. Though still known for its cigars (now made with tobacco from sources other than Cuba), Tampa branched out to become the industrial, commercial, and financial hub of Florida's west coast; a third of the state's ...