This was a piece of preliminary artwork of Bette Davis by Route 66 artist Ray Harvey.
Bette Davis, award winning actress, and her husband cruised into Cuba on Route 66 in their Packard Station Wagon. The actress would dine at the Southern Hotel and her husband would engage in a footrace through the streets of Cuba with a local newsman/photographer Wilbur Vaughn. Vaughn’s photo that sparked the footrace would appear that week in the Cuba News and Review.
These articles chronicle the events when Bette Davis visited Cuba, Mo.
The events of that day were the inspiration for one of Viva Cuba’s 12 outdoor murals by Route 66 artist Ray Harvey. When Viva Cuba learned of the story, the beautification organization knew that it would be a perfect mural for the new Cuba Free Press building. Below, read the real time chronicle of the events that occurred during that fateful day in 1948.
Wilbur Vaughn, the young photographer who took the photo, still lives in Cuba and often tells the story of his race to get the news of Bette Davis to the people of Cuba, MO.
The mural is appropriately placed on the Cuba Free Press building, home of Cuba's present newspaper.
Read a previous entry “Bette Davis visits Cuba, MO.”
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