185 Iowa 573 | Iowa | 1919
Plaintiff owns Lot 8, Block A, Commissioners’ Addition to Fort Des Moines, Iowa, being located at the corner of Seventh Street and Grand Avenue in Des
Section 751 of the Code confers on the city the “power to establish, lay off, open, widen, straighten, narrow, vacate, extend, improve and repair streets * * * within their limits.” Code Section 758 provides that:
“They shall have the care, supervision and control of all public highways, streets, avenues, * * * within the city, and shall cause the same to be kept open and in repair and free from nuisances.”
Section 792 of the Code declares that:
“Cities shall have power to improve any street, highway, avenue or alley by grading, parking, curbing, paving, graveling, macadamizing and guttering the same or any part thereof, and to provide for the making and reconstruction of such street improvements.”
As tersely stated in Wabash R. Co. v. DeHart, 32 Ind. App. 62 (65 N. E. 192) :
“The word ‘sidewalk’ has a well-understood meaning. We understand ex vi termini that a part of the street is meant. It is the public way, generally somewhat raised, especially intended for pedestrians, and adapted to their use, usually constructed in this country as a part of the street, at or along the side of the part thereof especially designed and constructed for the passage of vehicles and animals, there being often, if not generally, a gutter, also constituting a part of the street, between such parts; and, when the sidewalk is spoken of as being on a specific side of a designated street, it is to be understood to be a part so reserved of that street at or along the specific side of the roadway.”
See 1 Elliott on Roads and Streets (3d Ed.) Section 23; Perry v. Castner, 124 Iowa 386; Kohlhof v. City of Chicago, 192 Ill. 249 (85 Am. St. 335) ; Pomfrey v. Village of Saratoga Springs, 104 N. Y. 459 (11 N. E. 43).