Rating the Suburbs

Read our exclusive survey of the best schools, lowest taxes, safest streets and highest home values in 21 Dane County communities--then calculate your own sum total of the good life!

By Mary Erpenbach

Photograph by Audre Krull

The Winner: Mount Horeb

SOME COME FOR THE MUSTARD, others for trolls. But no matter the force that beckons a person to Mount Horeb, one fact immediately becomes clear: this town is special.

We locals have known this for some time. We know it because we have Stewart Lake and Donald Park.

We have one of the last true independent book stores, right across the street from the soap shop that still carries my grandmother’s lilac lotion.

We have a grocery store that buys the prize 4-H cows every single year, but also stocks expensive organic quinoa just because I asked.

We are protected by the best damn volunteer fire department on earth, and I’m certain that’s a recorded fact somewhere; we celebrate them twice a year with brats and beer and song.

We’re the fancy European latte sippers at the hip, new Sjolind’s and we’re the farmers talking crops and kringles over Schubert’s coffee since 1911.

We’re the culmination of each person and what they bring to the table.

That’s what makes this place unique, what makes it the best.

— Maggie Ginsberg-Schutz