Biohazard Cleanup Near North Millen Millen, GA

Millen is a city in eastern Georgia and the county seat of Jenkins County.

The town was first settled in 1835 and was originally called "79" or "Seven-Nine" because it lay approximately 79 miles from Savannah.

In 1854 the Central of Georgia Railway and the Georgia Railroad connected at the settlement, and it became known as Millen's Junction after McPherson B. Millen, the superintendent of the Central of Georgia Railway.

Millen was incorporated in 1881 and became the county seat of the newly created Jenkins County in 1905.

Jenkins County was created on August 17, 1905, from portions of Bulloch, Burke, Emanuel, and Screven counties, and was named for Charles Jones Jenkins, the 44th governor of Georgia.

During the Civil War, a Confederate prison camp for Union soldiers called Camp Lawton was built just outside Millen, in what is today Magnolia Springs State Park; designed to hold 40,000 men, it confined about 10,000 prisoners in November 1864.

Sherman's March to the Sea passed through Millen on December 3, 1864, and Union soldiers destroyed the town after finding the prison camp; residents rebuilt Millen after the war.

A 2010 archaeological project at Magnolia Springs State Park uncovered the exact location of Camp Lawton's stockade and dozens of prisoners' personal artifacts, a find officials called one of the biggest Civil War archaeological discoveries in decades.

The Downtown Millen Historic District was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1996.

The 2020 census counted 2,966 residents in Millen, the only incorporated city in Jenkins County, which had 8,674 residents.