Vicente Martinez Ybor (7 September 1818 – 14 December 1896) was a Spanish entrepreneur who first became a noted industrialist and cigar manufacturer in Cuba, then Key West, and finally Tampa, Florida.

It was annexed by Tampa in 1887 and was a major factor in the community's rapid development from a small town into one of the largest cities in Florida and, for a time, the world's leader in cigar manufacturing.

[1] In 1832, at the age of fourteen, he moved to Cuba to avoid the military service then mandatory for all male Spaniards,[3] and took a job as a grocery clerk before learning the cigar business.

[4] In 1856, Martinez Ybor founded his own small cigar manufacturing company in Havana, Cuba and began selling his El Principe de Gales ("Prince of Wales") brand.

[5] Martinez Ybor soon opened a new factory in Key West and resumed manufacturing his Principe de Gales brand, employing many Cubans who had also left their homeland due to the war.

Martinez Ybor and his business partners visited Tampa in September 1885, and the city quickly became their preferred choice due to the low price of land, hot and humid weather needed to keep cut tobacco workable, and convenient transportation links provided by Henry Plant's just-completed railroad and steamship lines.

[5] Ybor's original wooden building was donated to the community and became the first home of El Centro Español de Tampa, an important social club and mutual aid society.

Martinez Ybor sought to avoid the constant labor unrest he had struggled with in Key West by providing what he considered good wages and living conditions.

Martinez Ybor encouraged other cigar manufacturers to open factories in Tampa to further increase the pool of workers, and welcomed entrepreneurs who founded businesses in the area.