HUNT, TEXAS – In most small towns, there is a special spot. A place where locals visit every day to meet, eat and play.
In Hunt, the small Hill Country town devastated by the floods, that spot is The Hunt Store.
Most of the building was destroyed, with just pieces of the façade intact.
Store owner Haley Lehrmann invited TheTXLoop out there to see the damage but to also discuss the glimmers of hope after the flood.
According to Lehrmann, entering the Hunt Store felt like going back in time.
“It was like a small, little, wooden building in 1914. And then, in the (19)40s, it got a little bigger,” Lehrmann said. “And in the (19)70s, it really expanded.”
What never changed through the decades is the joy it brought the community.
“We have a group every day,” Lehrmann said. “There’s the morning group that does coffee in the dining room. The 3 o’clock group, the evening crowd, the live music. I mean, kids come down every day after school.”
On July 4, those memories were overcome by darkness and unforgiving floodwaters.
“The apartment collapsed on the middle of the store,” Lehrmann said.
The general manager and her 10-year-old daughter were inside that apartment.
“I got phone call about 4:30 frantic saying, ‘The water is up to where we are in the apartment. It’s the river,’” Lehrmann said. “And I couldn’t even comprehend what she was saying and what that meant.”
They were able to get onto the roof and move to a safer part of it. There, they waited to be rescued.
“Thank God that they made it through,” Lehrmann said.
However, the store itself did not survive.
“Just the whole roof fell in,” Lehrmann said.
She then pointed to the main walls on the sides of what used to be the store.
“Those walls were just completely gone,” Lehrmann said.
What was left of the building had to be demolished on Monday. It posed a hazard to volunteers clearing debris.
“It was really hard to see come down, but these amazing people here are still willing to help,” Lehrmann said.
Those volunteers have helped sift through the rubble and find other store-specific things that somehow held together through the storm: signs, mirrors, photographs and a Native American totem pole that stood at the front of the store.
“We’re so glad to find him,” Lehrmann said, speaking of the totem pole. “He was our greeter.”
The most important find took place while the TheTXLoop crew was there. A man pulled a sign out of the debris that said, “Hunt Locals, Members and Non-members Only.”
“We were so wanting to find this sign,” Lehrmann said. “We had it above the table on the patio that they come to every day.”
The sign hung near the fireplace — the store’s main gathering spot — which survived miraculously.
“I mean we have guys that come every single day and if they don’t show up we’re calling them, ‘Where are you? Are y’all alright?’” Lehrmann laughed. “If that fireplace could talk, oh my goodness.”
Lehrmann said she is grateful the fireplace is still standing, but they will work to restore it.
Her plan is for that fireplace to one day be surrounded by a new store that will carry on its historic charm.
“We’re definitely not going anywhere, and we’ll be here and working hard to do what we can to get back,” Lehrmann said. “We’re gonna try to do this as right and preserve but as quick as possible.”
Other community leaders are supporting her team and uplifting them when the rebuild seems too much to take on.
“The store is the heartbeat of our community and there is no one better than Haley and BB to be taking care of us at this time,” said John Dunn, a previous Hunt Store owner and current Hunt Preservation Society board member.
The store has always been beyond the 100 and even 500-year flood plain, so Lehrmann told TheTXLoop the building has never had flood insurance. This means they’ll need a lot of help.
Anyone who would like to help or follow along with updates on its rebuild go to the Hunt Store’s Facebook page or click here.
More Hill Country Floods coverage from Hunt on TheTXLoop:
Copyright 2025 by TheTXLoop – All rights reserved.