Things to Do in Bullard, Texas

Bullard's signature destination is Kiepersol, a three-time Top Texas Winery set on a sixty-acre estate atop the Bullard Salt Dome. Founded by the de Wet family, who hand-planted the first vineyards in 1998 and 1999, Kiepersol grows its own grapes for estate red and white wines, ages them in an oak barrel room holding more than 600 barrels, and runs a distillery — added in 2014 — that produces small-batch bourbon, rum, vodka, gin, and agave spirits.

The estate is a full day out: tastings of wine and spirits, vineyard and distillery tours, a legendary steakhouse restaurant, fifteen bed-and-breakfast rooms, and even Clydesdale-drawn carriage rides. It's one of the premier wine-country experiences in East Texas, right at Bullard's doorstep.

On the campus of The Brook Hill School, the American Freedom Museum packs 15,000 square feet of galleries with a collection of some 700 artifacts and documents tracing the story of the United States — a genuinely impressive history museum for a town this size, and a popular stop for school groups and visitors alike.

For something wilder, the Cherokee Trace Drive-Thru Safari lies a short drive south toward Jacksonville: a 300-acre preserve where you drive your own car among exotic and endangered animals. And motorsports fans head to Cactus Speedway, a one-fifth-mile clay oval in Bullard that runs go-karts, ATVs, and motorcycles on race nights.

Bullard sits just east of Lake Palestine, one of the largest reservoirs in the region, where residents and visitors go for fishing, boating, water sports, and lakeside relaxation. The lake's coves and shoreline are a major draw and the centerpiece of outdoor life around town.

And because Tyler is only about 15 minutes north, Bullard visitors have easy access to the rose gardens, museums, shopping, and dining of the bigger city, plus the broader recreation of East Texas. Between the wine estate, the museum, the safari, the speedway, and the lake, Bullard offers far more to do than its size would suggest.