When you’re shopping for rural land, you’re mostly guessing.
Back Forty doesn’t score properties or tell you what to buy. It pulls the public records — well logs, soil surveys, aquifer maps, wildlife data — that sit scattered across state and federal databases, and stitches them onto one map. What used to take an afternoon of phone calls, you see in one place in about 10 seconds. It’s a starting point for your own diligence, not a substitute for it.
Water
Will you hit water? How deep? What’s the yield going to be? “There’s a well on the property” doesn’t tell you whether you’ll get 2 gallons per minute or 200.
Septic
We show the average cost for the area, not which system to install — that’s a call for your installer and the county.
Soil
Can you farm it, graze it, or build a septic system on it? The dirt on the surface doesn’t tell you whether you’ve got 6 inches of topsoil over caliche, or 12 feet of clay loam ready for hay.
Wildlife
Is there real game here, or did the listing agent say “great hunting” because there are oak trees? Bag-limit data, harvest counts, and ecoregion habitat tell you the real story.
Data Centers
Is there a data center nearby — built or just announced? These campuses can draw on the same aquifer your well taps. We map what’s there and what’s proposed, so it’s a fact you check, not a rumor.
Back Forty pulls the record on all five. Data, not guesses.
Click any spot on a map of Texas. Back Forty pulls in everything publicly known about that property: nearby water wells, aquifer formation, soil composition, septic suitability, regional wildlife data, and currently-for-sale listings within 50 miles.
In 10 seconds, you get a property report that would take an afternoon of phone calls to assemble manually.
Back Forty is a research and discovery tool, currently in beta — a fast first look before you bring in a licensed pro.
How it works
Currently in beta · No login · No credit card · Texas only · Predictions are estimates — see terms.
Click any spot on the map.
Drop a pin anywhere in Texas — at the property you’re considering, a road frontage you want to evaluate, or a corner of a tract you want to compare.
Run the prediction.
Back Forty pulls in nearby wells, aquifer data, soil surveys, ecoregion data, and active for-sale listings. Takes about 10 seconds.
Read the findings.
Water depth, soil class, septic feasibility, wildlife potential — each with a color-coded result and the supporting evidence
You see the receipt, not just the prediction.
Most prediction tools give you a number and ask you to trust it. Back Forty gives you the number AND the closest real well — side by side.
Every prediction is paired with the nearest actual water well: how deep it was drilled, what was found in the ground, and how far it is from your pin. You’re never trusting a model in isolation. You see what was predicted, what was actually drilled nearby, and you decide for yourself how much weight to give either one.
What’s in every report
Water Depth Prediction
Expected depth to first water and total well depth, with the range across the nearest reference wells. So you know whether you’re drilling 200 feet or 800.
Septic Cost
We show the likely cost, not which system to install — that’s a call for your installer and the county.
Soil & Crops
Surface soil composition from USDA NRCS surveys. Tells you what grows, what’ll graze, and what you’re working with for foundations and grading.
Wildlife & Hunting
Deer Management Unit data, turkey populations, quail surveys, feral hog presence, and waterfowl flyway. Sourced from Texas Parks & Wildlife and USFWS.
Data Centers
Is there a data center nearby — built or just announced? These campuses can draw on the same aquifer your well taps. We map what’s there and what’s proposed, so it’s a fact you check, not a rumor.
Research
Plain-English research on what shapes rural Texas land — built from public records, not opinions. Context for your decision, not a verdict on it.
Data Centers & Texas Groundwater
What a nearby data center means for your well, the grid, and land value — and how to check a specific parcel.
Read the research →
Texas-only. On purpose.
Back Forty covers every county in Texas. All 254 of them. Our reference database has roughly 700,000 wells with over 5 million depth intervals — every public well record the Texas Water Development Board has.
We’re Texas-only because doing one state really well beats doing 50 states poorly. We’ll evaluate other states based on user demand, but the priority right now is making Back Forty the most accurate possible Texas land tool.
Accuracy, honestly.
Most companies selling land predictions quote big accuracy numbers and don’t tell you how they got them. We do.
Drop a pin on land Back Forty has never seen, and the model gets what’s underground right about 5 to 6 times out of 10 — close, but not exact. It might call something “clay” when it’s really sandy clay, or be a layer or two off on depth.
Some tools advertise 80% or 90%. A few genuinely earn it by surveying your property onsite with ground-sensing equipment — real accuracy, worth paying for when you’re close to drilling. Back Forty is free and instant instead, reading public records near your pin with no site visit. A desk estimate can’t match an onsite survey, and we won’t fake the gap by testing the model on land it already learned from. We test it the way you’d actually use it — somewhere new — and report exactly what that gives.
That’s why every report puts the nearest real well right beside the prediction — how deep it was drilled, what was found in the ground, and how far it is from your pin — so you can weigh the evidence yourself.
Where the data comes from
Back Forty doesn’t generate data — it surfaces public records and shows its work. Every report is built from:
- Water wells & lithology — Texas Water Development Board, Submitted Driller’s Reports (~700K wells, 5.26M depth intervals)
- Soil & crops — USDA NRCS SSURGO soil surveys
- Septic cost — derived from USDA NRCS soil data and regional install costs
- Aquifer formation — TWDB major & minor aquifer boundaries
- Wildlife & hunting — Texas Parks & Wildlife Department and U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service
- Data centers — OpenStreetMap contributors (Open Database License)
Coverage is only as complete as the public record. Where data is thin near your pin, the report tells you.
Drop a pin on the land you’re considering.
Back Forty does the rest — water, soil, septic, wildlife, and what data centers are nearby
No login. No credit card. Texas only. Predictions are estimates — see terms.