[4] The area is located in the Emory Road corridor (State Route 131), just north of Knoxville, southeast of Clinton, and east of Oak Ridge.

[6] Another early settler was John Manifee, a Revolutionary War veteran who built a small fort and trading station along what is now Clinton Highway in the late 1780s.

The railroad was essential to economy of early 20th century Powell as bricks were made with the mud from Beaver Creek and loaded onto the tracks and sent to various locations.

It is situated along Emory Road (SR 131) about halfway between Halls and Karns, and roughly spans the area between Interstate 75 to the east, and Clinton Highway (U.S. Route 25W) to the west.

The central action of James Agee's Pulitzer Prize winning memoir, A Death in the Family, takes place in Powell.