unusual circular layout. In 1927, newly assigned to Kelly Field as a dispatch officer in the motor pool, First Lieutenant Harold Clark designed a model four-quadrant airfield having a circular layout of facilities between parallel runways, after learning a new field was to be constructed. Having trained as an architect prior to entering the military during World War I, Clark sketched ideas for a perfect "Air City" on the back of old dispatch sheets, aligning the runways with prevailing winds and placing facilities by function between the runways to keep planes from having to make landing approaches over hangars, as they were forced to do at Kelly. Clark took his drawings to Lahm's executive officer, who immediately brought him before the planning board. On 1 November 1927, Clark submitted a finished plan to Lahm, and impressed with Clark's designs, Lahm detailed him to ACTC Headquarters on 8 December, to revise and develop the plans. The Military Affairs Committee of the San Antonio Chamber of Commerce quickly took the forefront in the search for an airfield location, which had to be suited to the airfield design, rather than the other way around as commonly done. A site east on San Antonio was chosen in May 1927 but rejected for those reasons. A second site near Schertz, Texas, was acquired and offered to the Air Corps on 31 December 1927. The land had to have clear title, be donated to the government, and have no restrictions as to use. Legal processes delayed the acceptance of the donated property until 16 August 1928. In the meantime, after a dispute with a blue ribbon committee of senior Air Corps officers who did not favor the circular design, Clark's layout was approved, also on 16 August, and construction began on 1 November 1927. It was "the largest construction project undertaken by the Army, up to that time, with the exception of the Panama Canal." Clark's design was submitted to and drawn upon by George B. Ford, a city planner and civilian advisor to the Construction Service of the Quartermaster Corps whose approval of all site plans for the Army was required between 1926 and 1930. The 2001 National Park Service nomination for the Randolph Field Historic District as a National Historic Landmark commented on the architectural layout of the field: It appears that Clark's plan, submitted by the Air Corps Training Center, was one of