Collections

This collection includes financial and administrative records of the El Porvenir organization, which specialized in providing physician services to members of the cigar manufacturing community of Tampa Bay.

This collection contains materials from the Himes family of Tampa, representing the local government and volunteer activities of Elizabeth Himes; John Rutland Himes, her husband; William F. Himes, her father-in-law; and the Himes children, Sara Allen and John Fraser.

L. Glenn Westfall, a retired professor of history, donated his Research Files to the Nelson Poynter Memorial Library during the summer of 2005 and a subsequent accession in 2006. The Subject Files follow an alphabetical arrangement and generally maintain the subject designations established by the donor. These boxes represent the largest portion of the collection (4.0 linear feet). Major holdings include research and primary source documents on the Alafia River area, the cigar industry in Florida, mutual aid societies, cultural activities in Ybor City, immigration patterns in the Tampa Bay region, and biographical files. Areas of special interest include clipping files that document activities in the Ocala during the 1880s and 1890s and records of gatherings from the Tampa Old Timers Association during the early 1970s. All manuscript materials in the second accession (boxes 10 and 11) fall into this category. Items in the Sanchez and Haya Real Estate Holdings boxes illustrate the business activities of a company that acquired and sold land parcels during the boom-era days of the cigar industry. Financial records from the late 1920s and early 1930s offer a portrait of the company's assets and liabilities. Abstracts of title provide historical research for various blocks and tracts of land in Ybor City. Thiese boxes also include correspondence sent and received by Martin Carrabello, a Tampa attorney who oversaw the estate after some members of the Sanchez and Haya families had passed away. The Serials and Periodicals box contains various publications collected by Westfall. In addition to newspaper articles and clippings written in the mid and late 1970s about the status of Ybor City, researchers may also consult various issues of the Bulletin of the Suncoast Archaeological Society (coverage 1976-1980) and articles and papers written by Westfall. In the Cigar Art and Miscellaneous Materials reside two distinct types of materials. The cigar art includes lithographic prints and images from cigar manufacturers and printers. This box also contains records of artillery training exercises at Fort Sill, Oklahoma, during the First World War. One item comprises the Government Documents series: the bound "Register of Prisoners Confined in the County Jail of Hillsborough County, Florida," for the years 1904 though 1909. An index in the front provides the accession number of the prisoner; with that number, researchers can examine basic information about the prisoner, his physical makeup, the crime committed, and the disposition of the case. The Films and Media Materials includes three films. Two of these films describe the cigar industry in Ybor City and exist in 16mm format. The other film is 8mm.