The ending date, July 4, 1921 has obvious connotations (The U.S.'s birthday, the road's construction, the Wilsonian dialogue) and some not so obvious. In Point Pleasant, West Virginia on this date, lightning struck and destroyed for the second time (hence a curse) a monument built to honor Chief Cornstalk of the Shawnee, who was murdered in false revenge by the first Revolutionary Continental Army, despite having offered himself peacefully to the US Government, which held him to prevent the Shawnee from joining the Royalist cause and attack the newly rebellious colonies. This lightning strike in West Virginia is a mirror to the flash of the photo's photographer.