Question

The archives of the municipal library were, to Julian, a repository not of history, but of echoes. Standing before the oak cabinets, he retrieved the 1922 ledger detailing the foundation of the canal—a project that his grandfather, Arthur, had overseen decades before Arthur's eventual departure for the capital in 1941. Julian traced the ink, remembering his own first visit to this room in 1988, guided by his mother, Clara. It was Clara who had first translated the ledger’s marginalia, written in Arthur’s hand just months before the canal's opening ceremony was abruptly canceled due to the Great Flood. Clara had recounted how Arthur, devastated by the deluge, had immediately abandoned his post as chief engineer, long before the city council officially dissolved the project commission in the winter of 1925. Yet, as Julian turned the brittle pages, he discovered a letter tucked inside the back cover, dated autumn of 1924, in which Arthur wrote to Clara’s future father-in-law, pleading for financial backing to salvage the half-built locks—a correspondence that occurred well after Arthur had supposedly severed all ties with the valley.

Based on the passage, Arthur’s appeal for financial backing to salvage the canal locks occurred at which of the following times?