Winkler v. City of Hastings

Several parcels of plaintiff’s agricultural land, each containing more than five acres, were detached from the city of Hastings by decree of the district court, and this is defendant’s appeal therefrom.

In severing the land from the municipality the trial court assumed to exercise a power conferred by section 4 of the Hastings charter. Comp. St. 1901, ch. 13, art. Ill, sec. 4. When the legislature convened in 1903 that .section was in this form: “The corporate limits of such city shall remain as heretofore, and the mayor and council may by ordinance include therein all the territory contiguous…