HIGHWAYS - TITLE WHICH AN ABUTTER MAY OBTAIN IN A PUBLIC STREET BY ADVERSE POSSESSION

By the plat, the lots of P and D in the unincorporated village of Crescent were separated by a street sixty-six feet wide. Actually the street was never opened and only the twenty feet abutting P\u27s property had been used as a way of access to land held by P and D and others. The remaining two-thirds of the street had been fenced by D and used by him as his for thirty years. P brought a statutory action to vacate the streets of the village. D cross-petitioned to have title to the fenced area quieted in him. Held, that there was no public interest involved, since the plat had never been accepted; that by adverse possession D had acquired a perfect title in the fenced area; that the remaining strip should not be vacated. Brewer v. Claypool, (Iowa, 1937) 275 N. W. 34