The Milledge Avenue Historic District is located along both sides of Milledge Avenue from Broad Street to Lumpkin Street at the Five Points intersection.
 

This district of approximately sixty acres comprises an intact residential portion of South Milledge Avenue, which follows the crest of the broad north-south ridge west of the University of Georgia campus. Lots varying considerably in size divide the relatively flat terrain. Buildings, predominantly two-story in height and massive in scale, front South Milledge Avenue. Principal building materials are wood and brick. An eclectic collection of mid-nineteenth to early-twentieth century mansions exhibits a variety of architectural styles and forms, including Greek Revival, Queen Anne, NeoClassical, Colonial Revival, Tudor Revival, Craftsman, American Foursquare, and Bungalow. More modest and vernacular types of housing from the 1920s and 1930s appear infrequently. Currently zoned office-institutional, the district contains several non-contributing structures, which date from the 1950s to the present and serve as fraternity/sorority houses, apartment buildings, and office buildings.

In the early 1800s, the main north-south ridge road on the western outskirts of Athens was named Milledge Avenue in honor of John Milledge, who donated the land for the university and later became governor of the state. A notable residential area developed incrementally along Milledge Avenue as the spacious farms and hardwood forest on the broad ridge were periodically subdivided into lots. The pastoral beauty of the landscape, the generous size of the lots, and the relatively cool and healthful location all combined to encourage Athenians of wealth and prominence to build mansions along Milledge Avenue. In the antebellum era these were mostly of the Greek Revival style, but by mid-century large Victorian homes began to appear among them. The twin plagues of Civil War and Reconstruction retarded progress, then development south of Broad Street surged during the 1880s and 1890s. In the mid-1890s, one of Athens' main streetcar routes ran down this avenue of mansions. After the 1929 stock market crash and the Great Depression that followed, these large homes became relatively expensive to maintain. Heretofore single family and owner-occupied dwellings, the mansions one after another underwent conversion to rental property with the usual result of deterioration and neglect. During the mid-twentieth century, fraternity and sorority organizations salvaged several structures through adaptive use as chapter houses and dormitories. Some organizations chose to demolish and rebuild, as may be seen in several colossal and pseudo-historic architectural forms in the district. More recently office and institutional uses have pervaded the area and continue to erode the historic character of this grand avenue.

Within the boundary of the Milledge Avenue Historic District are several sites worthy of individual recognition: the Dearing House, Hamilton House, Hodgson House, Phinizy-Segrest House, Scudder-Lewis House, Thomas-Carithers House, and the Wilkins House (see Inventory: Part I). Other buildings of individual distinction include the Fleming-Wilkins House, Hardeman House, Harris-Webster Cottage, Lipscomb-McWaters House, Phinizy House, Taylor-Hulme Cottage, and the White House (see Inventory: Part II) . The northeastern boundary of the Milledge Avenue district incorporates an area, on the east side of South Milledge between Broad Street and the south side of Henderson Avenue, which overlaps the Dearing Street Historic District (see Inventory: Part I).

The Milledge Avenue Historic District is listed on the National Register of Historic Places (April 18, 1985).