As Ybor City developed into a multicultural hub for the cigar industry at the turn of the twentieth century, mutual aid societies developed to enhance the lives of their members and provide “cradle to grave” services like healthcare. As the name implies, members pooled their money through weekly fees and were able to take advantage of the group’s buying power. They built clubhouses like the Cuban Club, Centro Espanol, and Centro Asturiano. Each became a social hub providing entertainment, parties, gambling, and a place to discuss the working of the cigar industry. Part of the benefit of being a member was having access to healthcare through the society. Centro Asturiano began in 1902, and both they and Centro Espanol built sanitoriums (hospitals) where members got free services, no matter the procedure, as part of their membership. Sanatorio del Centro Asturiano began when leaders rented out part of the Orange Hotel in downtown Tampa while they built this structure in 1903. The hospitals were called Covadonga in homage to the Virgin of Covadonga in Spain. It opened in 1905 with 54 beds, but they outgrew it. In 1927, plans were made to construct a newer and larger facility on the club’s 5-acre tract at Thirteenth Street and Twenty-First Avenue.

They moved the last patients to the new facility in 1928 and put the building up for sale. As the Great Depression began in 1929, there were no takers, so the club proposed building a new gymnasium on the property to replace the smaller one at the Nebraska and Seventh Avenue clubhouse. It is unclear if that ever happened. In 1937, the building was again a hospital when the Sinuothermic Institute opened with Dr. Fred Urbuteit at the helm. He used devices he called Sinuothermic Machines, claiming to cure various illnesses, including cancer, with electrical pulses. Urbuteit soon found himself in trouble with the Federal Government for quackery. Euclid Avenue was eventually closed for two blocks, most likely when the old Jefferson Junior High School gym was built in 1954. In 1995, the Salesian Youth Center and Boys and Girls Club opened after the Salesian Sisters (an order of Catholic nuns who also run nearby Villa Madonna School) purchased it for $650,000 and rehabbed the building. It still serves at-risk youth.  

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