John Allen Sterling

John Allen Sterling (February 1, 1857 – October 17, 1918) was a U.S. Representative from Illinois, and brother of Thomas Sterling.

Born to Charles Sterling (1821-1905) and Anna Kessler (1827-1908) near Le Roy in McLean County, Illinois, Sterling attended the public schools, and graduated from the Illinois Wesleyan University in Bloomington in 1881. He was superintendent of the public schools of Lexington, Illinois (now Lexington Community Unit School District 7) from 1881 to 1883.

He studied law, was admitted to the bar in December 1884, and commenced law practice in Bloomington. He was the state's attorney of McLean County from 1892 to 1896, and a member of the Republican state central committee from 1896-1898.

Sterling was elected as a Republican to the Fifty-eighth through Sixty-second Congresses (March 4, 1903–March 3, 1913). He was one of the managers appointed by the House of Representatives in 1912 to conduct the impeachment proceedings against Robert W. Archbald, judge of the United States Commerce Court. He lost re-election to the Sixty-third Congress, but was re-elected to the Sixty-fourth and Sixty-fifth Congresses and served from March 4, 1915 until his death near Pontiac, Illinois, as the result of an automobile accident on October 17, 1918.

He was interred in Park Hill Cemetery, Bloomington, Illinois.