Articles

Sunshine and Hustle

The Men Who Read to the Cigar Rollers

Before podcasts, before radio, before audiobooks, there were the lectores. In Tampa's cigar factories, workers pooled their wages to hire professional readers who would spend eight hours a day reciting novels, newspapers, and political tracts while thousands of hands rolled tobacco. The practice made Ybor City's workers the best-informed laborers in America — so informed that factory owners eventually banned it. The last lector was fired in 1931. This is the story of an extinct American profession.

The Neighborhood Under the Highway

For over sixty years, Dobyville was a thriving African American neighborhood in the shadow of Hyde Park's mansions. The people who worked in those mansions — cooks, maids, gardeners, drivers — built homes and raised families just blocks away. Then, in the 1970s, Tampa decided it needed a highway. Dobyville was in the way. The city demolished the entire neighborhood, scattered its residents, and paved over the memory. Today, cars pass over where the community used to be at 60 miles per hour. There is no marker.

The Pirate Who Never Was

Jose Gaspar never existed. The pirate whose name adorns Tampa Bay's biggest festival, the NFL team's ship, and countless gift shop tchotchkes is a complete fabrication - invented by railroad promoters, embellished by con artists, and maintained by everyone who profits from the myth.