at Strawberry Plains in 1863 The community that would become Strawberry Plains would be settled in 1785 by Adam Meek, a pioneer from North Carolina who would first settle in nearby Rocky Valley, and the first established settlement of newly founded
Jefferson County. Meek would resettle near the banks of the
Holston River in present-day Strawberry Plains following conflicts with inhabiting
Native Americans. By the 1920s and 1930s, Strawberry Plains would emerge as an
unincorporated town, with an established downtown area consisting several general stores, a
gristmill, auto repair shops, several restaurants, gas stations, a bank, a train depot, and a post office. Immediate access to
Knoxville,
Dandridge, and
Mascot courtesy of
U.S. Route 11E (Andrew Johnson Highway), and the
Southern Railroad would influence this growth of the community. With the completion of
Interstate 40 in the southwestern part of the community in the late 1970s, the community would face confrontations, with the Knoxville City Council in the 1990s, with their controversial "finger"
annexation of the commercial and retail corridors of exits 398 and 402 on I-40 on behalf of Knoxville mayor
Victor Ashe's efforts to increase sales tax revenue in Knoxville. Through much of the 20th century, Strawberry Plains was the site of a
Tennessee limestone quarry and an
underground zinc mine. In December 2008 it was announced that the mine would close again in February 2009. ==Geography==