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Howdy! Yes, people in Texas still use that word. Shiro was our second town. It will be interesting to see how things progress, what type of things we capture as we move along on our project. Such as with the first two towns, we have yet to really capture any of the residents, and very few homes.

 I guess there will always be some "negative" things happening on all these trips. First trip, I left my sun glasses on the hood of our SUV after our first stop, when we drove away they fell and got smashed. This trip, I thought I was taking a short cut and got lost. Well not really lost, but when we got to Richards (another town) the sign said Shiro was 8 miles away.  We  made a stop in Richards and got a couple of good shots of a Country Store.  (Tiger's and Sylvia's on www.photosig.com)  After driving what was definitely more than 8 miles, I knew I wasn't going the right way, but the next time we saw a sign it said Shiro 18 miles away! Yeah, I know, we went ahead and bought a Texas map, but still the FM1486 that goes right to Shiro, wasn't on the map!

 Shiro is located where FM 1486 and Hwy 30 meet. It is almost half way between College Station and Huntsville, on Hwy 30. I've made the journey between those two towns many times, and that is how I became aware of Shiro. 

The most outstanding landmark, was the COCA-COLA wall. I'm not sure what year it was painted, I found another photographers photo of it on PHOTOSIG and he claimed it was painted in the 1960's. I have a small collection of COCA-COLA wall photos I am trying to amass, so that is why I noticed SHIRO. Downtown is actually just 4 shops (not sure how often any are actually open) and a bank, which I don't think is a bank anymore, but a antique store type thing, based on peeking in the front door and seeing a toilet that was converted to a planter.

 We found 3 churches, a cemetery, volunteer fire department, 2 pay phones (only the Sprint one seemed functional), but no schools. Based on my Texas Almanac, Shiro was population 296 in the year 2000. There is a restaurant, gas station-convenience store (with hot food too), and two "for sure" active antique stores.