It was founded in the 1880s by Vicente Martinez Ybor and other cigar manufacturers and populated by thousands of immigrants, mainly from Cuba, Spain, and Italy.

The neighborhood had features unusual among contemporary communities in the south, most notably its multiethnic and multiracial population and their many mutual aid societies.

This process accelerated after World War II, and a steady exodus of residents and businesses continued until large areas of the formerly vibrant neighborhood were virtually abandoned by the late 1970s.

In 2008, 7th Avenue, Ybor City's main commercial thoroughfare, was recognized as one of the "10 Great Streets in America" by the American Planning Association.

[6] However, its combination of a good port, Henry Plant's new railroad line, and humid climate attracted the attention of Vicente Martinez Ybor, a prominent Spanish cigar manufacturer.

[7] Ybor had moved his cigar-making operation from Cuba to Key West, Florida, in 1869, due to political turmoil in the then-Spanish colony.

[8] Ybor considered several communities in the southern United States and decided that an area of sandy scrubland just northeast of Tampa would be the best location.

In 1885, the Tampa Board of Trade helped broker an initial purchase of 40 acres (160,000 m2) of land, and Ybor quickly bought more.

To attract employees, Ybor built hundreds of small houses for the coming influx of mainly Cuban and Spanish cigar workers, many of whom followed him from Key West and Cuba.

Other Italian immigrants started small businesses built around the cigar industry, such as cafés, food stores, restaurants, and boardinghouses.

"Ybor City is Tampa's Spanish India," observed a visitor to the area, "What a colorful, screaming, shrill, and turbulent world.

There were clubs for each ethnic division in the community – the Deutscher-Americaner Club (for German and eastern Europeans), L'Unione Italiana (for Italians), El Circulo Cubano (for light-skinned Cubans), La Union Marti-Maceo (for Afro-Cubans), El Centro Español (for Spaniards), and the largest, El Centro Asturiano, which accepted members from any ethnic group[21] Though there was little overt racism inside the diverse neighborhood, Florida's Jim Crow laws forbade Afro-Cubans from belonging to the same social organization as their more European-looking countrymen.

Worldwide demand plummeted as consumers sought to cut costs by switching to less-expensive cigarettes, and factories responded by laying off workers or shutting down.

This trend continued throughout the 1930s as the remaining cigar factories gradually switched from traditional hand-rolled manufacturing to cheaper mechanized methods, further reducing the number of jobs and the salaries paid to workers.

[26] As the historic neighborhood continued to empty out and deteriorate through the 1950s and 1960s, the federal Urban Renewal program sought to revitalize the area by demolishing older structures and encouraging new residential and commercial development.

[27] In the early 1980s, an influx of artists seeking interesting and inexpensive studio quarters started a slow recovery, followed by a period of commercial gentrification.

[33][34] Reflecting the district's status as a party destination, Ybor City is referenced extensively in the lyrics of Brooklyn-based rock band The Hold Steady.

[37] Historically, the boundaries of "Greater Ybor City" stretched from Tampa Bay on the south to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd.

The Ybor City Historic District encompasses the central portion of that area, approximately straddling Interstate 4, which bisected the neighborhood in the 1960s.

[38] The official boundaries of the Historic Ybor neighborhood are I-4 to the north, 22nd Street to the east, Adamo Drive to the south, and Nebraska Avenue to the west.

Though modern Ybor City also includes some of the surrounding area, its exact dimensions are loosely defined and subject to debate.

This caused damage to narrow city roads, was a danger to pedestrians, and sometimes resulted in trucks colliding with historic buildings.

[43] The TECO Line Streetcar, which links Ybor City, the Channelside District and Downtown Tampa, began operating in October 2002.

Small startups have also begun utilizing NEVs to shuttle passengers between Tampa's core neighborhoods including Ybor.