George Roby Dempster George R. Dempster, a leading twentieth-
century Knoxville businessman and political figure, was born in
Knoxville on September 12, 1887, to Scotland natives John D. and
Ann Dempster. After his high school graduation in 1906, Dempster
and his brother Tom went to work on the Panama Canal, where he
operated the first steam shovel in the Pacific cut. He returned
to Knoxville in 1911 and married Mildred Frances Seymour. Two
years later he and two of his brothers founded the Dempster
Construction Company, which built railroads, dams, and highways
throughout the Southeast. In the years that followed the
depression, Dempster achieved his greatest fame as the inventor
of the Dempster Dumpster. During World War II the U.S. Navy
widely used Dempster Dumpsters for collection and disposal of
waste. As a result of his successes in heavy equipment
manufacturing, Dempster rose to political prominence in
Knoxville and East Tennessee. Dempster was appointed city
manager of Knoxville three times (1929, 1935