corporation founded by the lykes family of tampa florida in 1910 . this family would become the largest landowner in florida the 9th largest landowner in the united states and the wealthiest in tampa bay . 1 in the 1870s dr. howell tyson lykes abandoned a medical career in columbia south carolina and took over a 500 acre 2.0 km2 family cattle ranch in rural hernando county north of tampa . the lykes family started the first school in this county in spring hill and the library at the county seat brooksville also bears the lykes name . the family cemetery is located outside of brooksville . in 1895 dr. lykes moved to ballast point in tampa florida where he began shipping cattle to cuba . gradually his seven sons joined the family operations which incorporated in 1910 as lykes brothers . this corporation would come to comprise interests in land citrus phosphate mining timber eucalyptus pine sugarcane a major shipping line lykes brothers steamship company cattle and meat processing banking first florida bank and lykes insurance company . in the 1930s lykes bros. purchased the 265 000 acre 1 070 km2 lykes ranch in west texas south of alpine . by the 1950s lykes bros. steamships was the largest u.s. shipping line with 54 cargo ships operating out of gulf ports . 2 a lykes bros. ship would be the first to sail into shanghai harbor after the u.s. established relations with mainland china . a leader in citrus concentrate the 15 million lykes pasco citrus processing plant was the biggest in florida . the corporation took a blow when la candelaria the 15 000 acre 61 km2 lykes estate 250 miles 400 km east of havana was nationalized during the cuban revolution . it is now a cooperative farm . see also edit lykes palmdale airport lykes building references edit notes st. petersburg times january 25 2002 time march 8 1954 further reading vogel mike september 2001 . family feud . florida trend . st. petersburg florida times publishing company . external links edit official website lykes ranch fl website retrieved from https en.wikipedia.org w index.php title lykes brothers & oldid 664930996 categories companies established in 1910companies based in floridacompanies based in tampa florida navigation menu personal tools not logged intalkcontributionscreate accountlog in namespaces article talk variants views read edit view history more search navigation main pagecontentsfeatured contentcurrent eventsrandom articledonate to wikipediawikipedia store interaction helpabout wikipediacommunity portalrecent changescontact page tools what links hererelated changesupload filespecial pagespermanent linkpage informationwikidata itemcite this page print export create a bookdownload as pdfprintable version languages add links this page was last modified on 31 may 2015 at 22 41 . text is available under the creative commons attribution sharealike license ; additional terms may apply . by using this site you agree to the terms of use and privacy policy . wikipedia is a registered trademark of the wikimedia foundation inc. a non profit organization . privacy policy about wikipedia disclaimers contact wikipedia developers cookie statement mobile view