Mount Sterling, IL

Mount Sterling is Brown County’s seat, organized in 1854 and still shaped by the courthouse role it took on when the county was formed. The town’s business story has a distinct local name attached to it: Dot Foods, the foodservice distributor founded in Mount Sterling in 1960 by Robert and Dorothy Tracy. There is a school-town thread too; Brown County School District #1 runs elementary, middle, and high schools, whose teams are the Hornets. The local shorthand is a county-seat town where court records, the Hornets, and a family food business all sit in the same frame.