There's not much happening in Sharon, Ga., and that suits residents just fine.
Today the most striking thing about this tiny town -- city limits surround an area less than a square mile -- is the silence that shrouds it.
On a recent afternoon, only the shrill buzzing of cicadas and the occasional log truck roaring through town broke the calm.
In its heyday, though, from the late 1800s through the 1940s, the streets were packed with wagons as cotton farmers came from miles around to stock up on supplies at the town's four general stores.
Tourists from all over the Union passed through Sharon's train depot on their way to the nearby Electric Health Resort to cure their rheumatism and dyspepsia.
Tall, crumbling buildings beaten down by time and weather are the only remnants of that glorious past. Today's residents are proud of their history, but equally focused on enjoying the present and making a future.
"It's a slower pace of life," Mayor Renee Brown said.
Sharon, about 50 miles west of Augusta, is in Taliaferro County, historically one of Georgia's poorest and smallest counties. There's evidence of that in the shuttered buildings and clusters of double-wide trailers on the outskirts of town.
But even the poorest homes sport satellite dishes and have SUVs in the driveways. Yards are neatly trimmed and trash free, giving the whole town an aura of pride in appearance.
Even on the narrow dirt roads that thread a circuit around town, you'll find a mailbox painted with flowers and the ubiquitous University of Georgia Bulldog pennant.
The town seems abandoned at first, with no one pulling weeds in those yards or outside chatting with a neighbor, but spend a little while in town and people will drive by and wave.
Brown said it's that laid-back atmosphere and slow pace of life that attract and keep residents in Sharon.
"There's no rush," she said.
Another bonus of living in rural Georgia is the lack of light pollution. Just outside town is a place called the Deerlick Astronomy Village, a small collection of comfortable homes spread out over 100 acres.
It took two years of searching by amateur astronomer Jerry Tarter and his colleagues to find this spot, which is one of the darkest areas in Georgia. Its isolated location is added insurance that a Walmart or McDonald's won't be moving in anytime soon to spoil their darkness.
"We did a lot of research in the area," Tarter said.
It took days of work to bulldoze the existing pines and scrub brush, then more time to build the mobile homes and observatories that dot the village's large meadow. It was all worth it, though, when they set up their telescopes.
"The Milky Way was so beautiful," Tarter said.
The exact origin of Sharon's name has been lost over time, but historian Robert Kendrick and others believe it was taken from the Bible's Rose of Sharon.
Kendrick lives in nearby Crawfordville now but has roots in Sharon. He can remember when the town had 12 businesses, a cotton gin and a train depot. The town really hit its stride in the 1930s and '40s, Kendrick said. Then boll weevils laid waste to Taliaferro County's cotton farms, and farmers eventually had no choice but to abandon plots that had been in their families for generations.
When Walmart and other chain stores opened up, it put the final nail in the coffin for towns such as Sharon, Kendrick said. Sharon's population is now about 100.
"That drained it on down," Kendrick said.
Still, all is not gloom and doom. Brown encourages people who crave tranquility to take a trip out to Sharon. Land is cheap and plentiful, she said, and the people are friendly. She cannot remember the last time someone was arrested.
Her son grew up in Sharon and couldn't wait to get out of town. It wasn't until he settled in Atlanta that he realized how much he missed his hometown.
"He realized for the first time that people knew his business because they cared," Brown said.
The Augusta Chronicle ©2012. All Rights Reserved.
Back 
