While waiting for the finalized purchase, but with "a minute of contract and guarantee"[5] in place of a deed, Mr. Blalock, Mr. Ingram, Mr. Parmer, and Reverend Talley, presented themselves before Mexican government officials to try to get concessions on duty charges. After they finished their business in Mexico City, Mr. Parmer and Reverend Talley went to Chamal to "...get things in as good shape as possible..." while Mr. Blalock and Mr. Ingram returned to Mangum.[6]

The men had been able to study a map of the Hacienda Chamal and found it to contain 176,515 acres, over 9,500 acres more than they expected. They also learned the valley was not in the shape of a horse shoe but a long, "...strip about three times as long as it is wide..."[7]

Finalizing Preparations

On Tuesday, December 23, 1902, about fifty members of the colony spent most of the day and continued into the night, discussing details of their impending and much anticipated departure to and arrival in Mexico. They only took a break for dinner. They discussed and debated in detail every anticipated contingency.

Representatives of two railroad companies were present at the meeting. They came to discuss all issues related to transporting the colonists, their baggage, household goods, and livestock. Mr. E. M. Duncan was present representing the Rock Island Railroad, and Mr. J. W. Flanagan represented the Mexican International Railroad. Mr. Flanagan informed the colonists that the Mexican Government would not allow a colonist's car into Mexico with more than ten head of livestock. This limitation would require the colonists to travel into Mexico, "...in the regular emigrant manner, with stock in one end of the car and household goods in the other."[8]

Whatever railroad companies would get the business; they stood to make a lot of money, as there were three to four hundred people in the colony in need of transit.

Still in late December of 1902, all the paperwork had not been completed for the purchase of the Hacienda Chamal, so the much hoped for date for departure was postponed to January 15, 1903. By that time, Mr. Blalock, was expected to be back in Mangum. Mr. Blalock was still in Mexico City trying to procure the deeds to the Chamal land. In a Magnum Sun-Monitor article published on December 25, 1902, Mr. Blalock writes from Mexico that, “… he is taking no chances on the absolute safety of the conveyance papers, and the niceties and intricacies of the title are being given a close and rigid scrutiny.”