With industrial and commercial growth , more residential centers sprang up to house company employees and other residents . Preeminent among these residential centers was Cascade . At the center of the community established by the Russians , Swedes , Norwegians , and Greeks who settled there in the late 19th and early 20th centuries was the Cascade School ( built 1894 ; demolished after the 1949 Olympia earthquake ) , a public elementary school from which the neighborhood took its name . From the 1930s , South Lake Union became less residential , evolving into an area of small business , warehouses and auto-oriented services . Cascade slowly lost its identity as a neighborhood distinct from the rest of South Lake Union , especially after construction of Interstate 5 cut it off from Capitol Hill
1949 Olympia earthquake
1949 Olympia earthquake
South Lake Union, Seattle