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This story was produced by Grist and co-published with The Texas Tribune.

Brian Keeper doesn’t remember exactly when his family began spending holidays in Hunt, an unincorporated town on the banks of the Guadalupe River where they’d camp, swim, and fish. Sometimes they caught so many perch, bass, and catfish that it felt like his mother had the grill going all day long.

“We were just in love with Hunt,” recalled Keeper. “We were in love with coming up here and getting in the river.”

But he does remember the year he and his seven siblings helped their father build a one-bedroom summer house along the river. It was 1975, and the Texas Longhorns were on their wa

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