Jim,
Not agreed.
I believe they rushed to get the land deal done. MCC may have balked because they hadn't finalized or even started a routing, which is when the "Flexible Boundary Concept" came into play. They transferred it to Lloyd (perhaps because both parties trusted him?) and finalized the deal. Why was there a rush? Well, maybe there wasn't, or maybe someone had some tax advantages to take advantage of before the end of the calendar year.
In any event, its funny how the same words can be read differently by two different people. I take Culyers words to mean "Start routing within that land boundary and tell me when its done" while you think it means "We are close, tinker some more, and tell me when its done."
I think the land committee (or whatever it was called) wrapped up there work on Dec. 10, 1910.
I think Lloyd commissioned Pugh and Hubbard or others to prepare a topo map upon acquistion of the property. This today even takes several weeks. I believe it was delivered to MCC in late January 1911, mostly because Wilson's first letter on 2--1-11 to Oakley says he is "sending our topo maps immediately." He does not say "We are sending our routing" so (while speculating a bit) I believe the maps are new and the routing has just begun.
I really doubt these important men did a lot the weeks between XMas and New Year. When they returned in January, they found that Hugh Wilson ahd asked Santa for the chairmanship of the Construction Committee and they made his wish come true on their first meeting of January 11, 1911. They start to work, and await the topo maps, which because of the Xmas break, show the 11-10-1910 approximate road as their boundary.
After a month of work on it, they take their 5 plans to CBM at NGLA in March. He/they approve 1 of those plans.
CBM returns on April 6 to declare the last 7 holes among the finest inland holes anywhere. I doubt he would do this if they hadn't been shaped into their final form. Thus, I conclude that the land swap was merely a part of the routing process and probably occurred between Feb 1 and March ? when they went to NGLA. CBM "approved" one of the five re-routed plans that they made AFTER noodling on how to best realign the road..
Or, CBM approved some other plan, and they chose it, Francis realized his idea in the middle of the night sometime after the March NGLA visit. This would narrow the land swap down to March-April 19, 1911 when the final property is approved in the minutes.
The last possibility is that CBM approved a plan on March ? (sorry, forgot the exact date) and they even started building to it, using the November property line. AFTER he leaves on April 6, but before July 11, 1911 when the deed was finalized, Francis has his idea and the holes 14-17 are altered and blasted away immediately, as he said. And at that point, it is a mere swap of land along the road.
I am still awaiting some dimensions from Bryan to make sure my map is correctly scaled in CAD but thought I would jump in.