City of Eureka v. McKay & Co.

This is an action in ejectment brought by the city of Eureka to recover from defendants a piece of land alleged to be a public street of that city, described and known as "A Street." The answer denied the allegations of the complaint, and affirmatively pleaded the statute of limitations and an estoppel against plaintiff. The case was tried upon an agreed state *668 ment of facts. Judgment passed for plaintiff, and defendant appeals.

In 1850 a settlement was made on the site of what afterwards came to be the town of Eureka, now the city of Eureka. In that year one Ryan made a map entitled “Map of Eureka.” Before the eighteenth day of April, 1856, this map was deposited in the office of the recorder of Humboldt county, and has since remained in the office of the recorder. It bears upon it no marks of filing. The map represented blocks, lots and streets, those streets running generally north and south being named from the letters of the alphabet, those running at right angles to them by numbers. “A street,” as delineated, forms the western boundary of the town, and extends from the waters of Humboldt bay southerly beyond Third street. On April 18, 1856, the legislature passed an act…