Biohazard and Pathogen Disinfection in Mount Sterling, IA

Mount Sterling is a census-designated place in Van Buren County in far southeastern Iowa, less than a mile north of the Missouri border - it was an incorporated city for over a century before voting to disband.

Mount Sterling was first settled in the late 1830s, when George and Horace Wood established a sawmill and corn-cracker on the site to serve the small farms of southern Van Buren County and nearby Scotland County, Missouri.

Early residents nicknamed the village 'Dogtown,' because nearly every farmer who came to the Woods' mill brought two or three dogs along - and Horace Wood's three hounds loved to devour the corn meal as it came out of the grinder.

Before the name Mount Sterling was chosen, the village was also known as Wood's Mill and Union Corners; the area's first school was built in 1841 and its post office opened in 1854.

Mount Sterling was incorporated in 1907 and reached its peak population of 232 in the 1910 census, never exceeding about 300 residents in its entire history.

In 2003 Mount Sterling made national news when its mayor, Jo Hamlett, jokingly proposed an ordinance that would fine residents and visitors for lying - a stunt that pointed out the chronic lack of cash in a town whose yearly budget never exceeded $5,000.

After no candidates filed to run for mayor or city council in the November 2011 election, the Mount Sterling city council voted in April 2012 to disband the town, and it officially became unincorporated on November 11, 2012 - the first Iowa town to take such a step since 2005.

The 2020 census counted just 33 people living in 17 households in Mount Sterling, and the community today has only two businesses, a bar and grill and an auto repair shop, along with a hunting lodge.

The Fox River flows past the southwest side of Mount Sterling, and the Fox River Wildlife Management Area lies just south of the community.