Cuba, Missouri: The Mural Town That Reinvented Itself

Cuba, Missouri, was established in eighteen fifty-seven and named, like several American towns of that era, after the island of Cuba. It sits in Crawford County on the old Route Sixty-Six alignment between Sullivan and Rolla, deep in the Missouri Ozarks. Cuba's Route Sixty-Six revival began in the early two thousands when the city commissioned a series of large outdoor murals on downtown buildings depicting local and regional history, from the early settler era through the twentieth century.

The murals became a destination in themselves. Visitors who stopped for a photograph discovered the town and spent money; local businesses reopened. Cuba became one of the more cited examples of small-town Route Sixty-Six economic reinvention using public art rather than a single landmark attraction.

The Wagon Wheel Motel, has operated since the nineteen thirties and is still operating, is among the oldest continuously running motels on the entire highway.