Dearing Street Historic District

Dearing Street Historic District occupies a level ridge west of the university campus and downtown in Athens, Georgia, about half a mile on each side. Nearly all its houses, and all the old ones, are frame, typical of the Georgia Piedmont. Among them are some of the oldest homes in the city, such as the Rucker-Teague house, dating from about 1810-20, and the Lehmann-Bancroft-Land house of 1834, described as the oldest Greek Revival house left in Athens, with four two-story Doric columns and a pediment. Three large Italianate houses from the late 1850s and early 1860s, many cottages from the 1870s onward, and Neo-Classical Revival mansions along Milledge Avenue add variety. Residents included university professors and a chancellor, newspaper editors, mill owners, and two authors whose books describe 19th-century Athens. Two notable houses were lost to demolition in the 1960s, but the district retains much of its early character.