Founded in 1835 as an inn owned by Robert Hendricks Gray and originally named Brisonville, Millen Junction stood about 80 miles from Savannah on the Central Railroad of Georgia and was also known as "The 80 Mile Depot" or "Old 79." It was renamed for McPherson B. Millen, who became the railroad's superintendent in 1848, and officially shortened to Millen in 1881. Railroad construction reached the town in 1839, linking it to Savannah and later Macon, and after spurs to Waynesboro in 1851 and Augusta in 1854 were added, it became a vital Civil War rail junction for moving men and materials between Savannah, Macon, and Augusta. During Union Major General William T. Sherman's march, he traveled with Major General Francis Blair, Jr. and more than 11,000 men of the 17th Corps, camping at Buck Head Creek just west of Millen on Friday, December 2, 1864, while Blair's infantry entered town that evening. Sherman arrived before 9:00 a.m. the next day, and soldiers burned many structures, including the depot, all railroad buildings and storehouses, two used to hold captured Federal officers, and the old inn. George Ward Nichols later praised the wooden depot's graceful design and described its destruction as a brilliant spectacle, while Theodore R. Davis depicted the burning and Major Henry Hitchcock described the depot, station house, hotel, and outbuildings before calling the railroad's destruction a terrible blow and referring to the place as the "late town of Millen." As the old inn burned, Hitchcock and two other officers rushed in to save a woman believed to be inside, only to find she had already been led out, and Hitchcock gave her five dollars. At the home of a Mr. Myers on a hill south of the railroad, a claim of Union loyalty collapsed when 100 buried cotton bales were found under a cabin, and both cabin and cotton were burned. Around 1:00 p.m. on December 3 Sherman and the 17th Corps left for the vicinity of Scarborough, and after the war Millen's railroad facilities were rebuilt, with the brick depot dating from 1868.