The Big Guava

The moniker derives from a combination of New York's "Big Apple" nickname and a reference to businessman Gavino Gutierrez's unsuccessful quest for wild guava trees, which turned out to be vital to Tampa's growth and development.

[1][2] In 1884, Gavino Gutierrez, a Spanish-American civil engineer by training who was working for a tropical fruit packing firm in New York, heard a rumor that wild guava trees were common near the Tampa Bay area on the west coast of Florida.

Thinking that the fruit could be gathered and serve as a new product source for his company, Gutierrez accompanied the owner of his firm on a fact-finding mission to Tampa.

Gutierrez returned to New York by sea, stopping along the way to visit his friend Vicente Martinez-Ybor, a major cigar manufacturer in Key West.

Gutierrez accepted Ybor's offer to be his company's civil engineer, and he planned and laid out the streets where thousands of immigrants would soon live and work, a community that has been initiated by his recommendation.