[1] Most of the Industrial District is built on what was once the mudflats and lowlands of Elliott Bay and the Duwamish estuary, dredged, straightened, and filled 1902 and 1907.

For example, the villages of tohl-AHL-too ("herring house") and later hah-AH-poos ("where there are horse clams") at the then-mouth of the Duwamish River in what is now the Industrial District, had been inhabited since the 6th century CE.

[9] In 1905 the Seattle Box Company relocated to the southeast corner of 4th Avenue S and S Spokane Street becoming one of the first residents of the Industrial District.

[citation needed] Starbucks moved its world headquarters to the Industrial District in 1997, occupying the 1912 building constructed for Sears, Roebuck and Company as a catalog distribution center.

[10] The area is seen by some city developers as an ideal zone in which to expand non-industrial businesses and residential land use south of Downtown Seattle.