We decided to take a few hours to get a look at the history of our new home of Tampa Bay. The Tampa Bay History Center is three floors of permanent and temporary exhibition space by the water in downtown Tampa covering 12,000 years of Florida history. The museum includes a branch of the Hillsborough County Library and a scaled-down version of Ybor City’s famous Columbia Restaurant.

The trip was enlightening. The story of Tampa’s early pre-Columbian history was awe-inspiring. We loved imagining giant sloths roaming the grasslands. The museum had significant floorspace dedicated to the region’s history including extensive exhibits on the area’s craft beer industry, pirates and privateers and its famed cigar factories. 

Seminole woman using a sewing machine

Zeke practices using a sextant for navigation in the priate exhibit.

 Marketing 101 lessons in a cigar shop: Put your logo on everything.