Tampa Box Factory: From Cigar Boxes to Ybor City Lofts

Ybor City’s cigar industry needed more than skilled cigar rollers and tobacco. It needed boxes—hundreds of thousands of them—and the Tampa Box Company supplied them.

Established in the late 1800s, the company originally operated at 7th Avenue and 16th Street. After a fire destroyed the factory in the early 1900s, it built a new brick facility at Second Avenue and 21st Street around 1910.

The Tampa Box Company became a major supplier to the booming cigar industry, manufacturing hundreds of thousands of cedar boxes annually. Prized for their aroma and quality, the boxes were essential to the cigar business. According to Cigar City Magazine, when it was still known as Lieman Weidman Company, the Tampa Box Company was the world's largest cigar box manufacturer, producing hundreds of thousands of boxes annually for the booming cigar industry.

But Ybor City's industrial success came at a price.

Today, Ybor City’s history is often romanticized, celebrating its multicultural neighborhoods, bustling cigar factories, food, and traditions. But life for the workers who fueled that prosperity was far less glamorous. Hours were long, and conditions were tough.

This 1930 Burgert Brothers photograph above reveals another side of industrial Ybor City. Smoke and pollution hang over the neighborhood, while inside the factories, employees endured long hours and harsh working conditions. Behind the colorful history and cultural traditions was an industry built on the hard labor of thousands of workers.

By the mid-20th century, the cigar industry was declining. World War II drew workers away from the factories, while the growing popularity of cigarettes accelerated the decline during the 1950s and 1960s. The Tampa Box Company closed in the late 1960s, leaving its factory largely idle for decades.

A couple of other buildings in these photographs deserve a closer look.

Near the far right center of the Burgert photograph below stands the Straiton-Storm Cigar Factory, now known as the Arturo Fuente Building. Constructed in 1895 at 1310 N. 22nd Street, the three-story brick factory sits near the water towers and is now owned by the Arturo Fuente Cigar Company. The water towers are long gone.

The brick building in the lower right of the contemporary photograph also bears the Arturo Fuente name. Although it looks historic, it was actually constructed in 2016.

So, what became of the old box factory?

After decades of industrial use and neglect, the building found new life as apartments before being converted into condominiums in the early 2000s.

Today, its 53 individually owned, two-story lofts feature soaring ceilings, large windows, and unique interiors. Hidden from the street is a landscaped courtyard with a spacious swimming pool—a far cry from the noise, dust, and machinery of a century ago.

The cigar boxes are long gone, but the factory remains, another chapter in Ybor City's ever-changing story.

©Chip Weiner. All Rights Reserved