s ’ w o b n i a R Lost Roads by Joe Naiman This map of Rainbow still includes Welty Street and a portion of Seventh Street.
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he San Diego County Board of Supervisors voted Dec. 7, 2011, to vacate a road easement in Rainbow nearly 110 years after their predecessors created Welty Street on the map. The termination of the easement thus guaranteed the addition of Welty Street to Rainbow’s lost roads. The lost roads of Rainbow, or those which were recorded on the original subdivision map but never built, include Third Street, Fourth Street, Sixth Street and Seventh Street – which explains why Rainbow has First Street, Second Street, Fifth Street and Eighth Street but no numbered streets in between them. “Some of those roads just aren’t there,” Tom Harrington, who
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at the time handled easement records for the county’s Department of General Services, said. “They just map the area.” If Harrington’s name sounds familiar, it might be because he was also the secretary of the Fallbrook Community Planning Group and lives in the Morro Hills area on the other side of greater Fallbrook. The county records of maps allow attorneys and civil engineers to have accurate records of easements and other real property data. “A lot of what we do have is recordation,” Harrington said. “We’re looking at land rights issues regularly.” If the street was dedicated as a private road, the county isn’t involved in terms of easement recordation. The county isn’t necessarily involved once a road is dedicated for public purposes. “Even a publicly dedicated road that’s not publicly maintained, it’s still private interests that control the day,” Harrington said. “If they’re not county-maintained, those are private roads.” Map 880 subdivided Rainbow into 55 lots. The map included eight east-west streets, numbered First Street through Eighth Street, and six north-south streets. Huffstatler Street still exists today. One of the north-south streets was given three different names: it was called Camino Rainbow south of Eighth Street, Main Street from Eighth Street to Mission Road and Chica Road north of Mission Road. Mission Road ran in a northeasterly direction from east of Main Street. The other four north-south streets were Welty Street, Larsen Street, Rulp Street and Machado Street. The county board of supervisors approved the map Feb. 6, 1902, and John Griffin filed the map with the county Recorder’s office the following morning. “That was going to be the road network to provide access to all these parcels,” Harrington said. Larsen Street, Rulp Street and Machado Street had previously been vacated. Welty Street was not vacated until nearly 110 years after the map had been recorded. “That was a mistake. They just overlooked it,” Bill Hitt, who has lived in Rainbow since 1946, said. Welty Street on the map ran from Fifth Street to Seventh Street just west of what is now the Vallecitos School District facilities. Larson Street would have been between Welty Street and Main Street and would have connected Third Street and Seventh Street. Rulp Street would have been the road just east of Main Street and would have been bordered by Fifth Street and Seventh Street. Machado Road was mapped as the street just east of Rulp Street www.my-sourcebook.com
