The Henry B. Plant Museum in Tampa (401 W. Kennedy Blvd.; 813-254- 1891) is housed in the 1891 Tampa Bay Hotel, built by Plant as one of his grand hotels for wealthy northerners arriving on his railroad. The museum focuses on three principle areas: Henry Plant and the Plant System of railroads, steamships and hotels; life in the Gilded Age resort in the 1890s; and the Spanish-American War including an interpretation of the period in Tampa when Col. Teddy Roosevelt trained the Rough Riders in camps near the hotel. Guided tours are available.

In the small town of Parrish on U.S. 301, about halfway between Tampa and Sarasota, the Florida Gulf Coast Railroad Museum (941-776-0906) preserves historic rolling stock. Presently only a small selection from the collection of rolling stock is on display. You can ride the display of open coaches, air-conditioned coaches, lounge cars and cabooses pulled behind a diesel engine. Board at 83rd Street E. There are displays on the train, which you can view as you take a 12 mile round-trip ride.

The Ybor City Museum State Park (1818 9th Ave.; 813-247-1434), in the 1923 former Ferlita Bakery, provides an excellent introduction to this once cigar-capital of the world and an early center of Cuban population in Florida. Guided tours of La Casita next door offer a glimpse of life in a typical turn-of-the-century cigar-maker's home.

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