Best US Ports Of Departure - Tampa, Florida

The city of Tampa is located on the western coastline of Florida, about 50 miles southwest of Orlando.

In the early nineteenth century the Federal Government decided to resettle the Seminole Indians to the region beside Tampa bay. Fort Brooke was built on the eastern shore of Hillsborough River to enforce control of the district. It continued as a small and remote village until 1884 when the Florida railroad magnate Henry B Plant resolved to construct a railroad which ran through Tampa, terminating at Port Tampa. After the completion of the railroad, Henry B Plant set up a steamship line ferrying passengers, goods and post between Havana and Port Tampa. Furthermore Plant built a number of opulent hotels around the bay, amongst them the St Elmo Inn and Port Tampa Inn in Port Tampa, and the Tampa Bay Hotel by Hillsbrough River in Tampa itself.

In the late 19th century the Tampa Board of Trade encouraged Don Vincente Martinez Ybor to set up a new cigar-making factory in the town. The cigar concern quickly grew in size, partly because it was ideally located between the supply of tobacco coming in through Port Tampa and the markets of the USA.

Tampa enjoyed a double dose of good business fortune when mineral surveys found easily accessible phosphate deposits, a constituent of fertilizer, to the east of the city.

Tampa's rise continued throughout the 20th century, and today the city has matured into a modern urban center with a highly profitable business zone.

The city's ports have had a major impact on the city's economy since the 19th century. At the start Port Tampa operated as the city's port, but it was to be displaced as Tampa's leading port by the Port of Tampa. Tampa was a thriving departure and arrival port for foot passengers in the late 19th century but passenger services dwindled during the next century. Vacation cruises only began in the 1980s when Holland America and Regency Cruises started running cruises from the Port of Tampa to the Caribbean. The cruise company Carnival saw the demand for these cruises, and established a cruise programme out of Tampa in 1994.