George Roby Dempster (September 16, 1887 – September 18, 1964) was an American businessman, inventor, and politician, active primarily in Knoxville, Tennessee, during the first half of the 20th century. Dempster is known for the invention of the Dempster-Dumpster, a now-commonly-used trash receptacle that can be mechanically emptied into garbage trucks. During the 1910s and 1920s, the Dempster Brothers Construction Company, operated by Dempster and his brothers, built a number of roads and railroads across the Southern Appalachian region. Dempster also served as a city manager and mayor of Knoxville, where he became known for his political battles with eccentric Knoxville businessman Cas Walker and Knoxville Journal editor Guy Smith Jr. Biography Early life Dempster was born in 1887, the ninth child of Scottish immigrant John Dempster and Irish immigrant Ann Doherty. John Dempster co-managed Scott, Dempster and Company, a gristmilling firm that operated a mill on First Creek. As a teenager, George Dempster travelled around the country working odd jobs for various companies, including the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway, the Atlanta, Birmingham and Atlantic Railroad, and the Ward Line shipping company. A railroad strike in 1903 left him briefly stranded in a hobo colony in Iowa. Dempster graduated from the Girls High School in Knoxville in 1906, having served as the school's class president. After high school, Dempster worked as a steam shovel operator on the Panama Canal project, excavating the canal's Miraflores and Pedro Miguel locks. During the project, Dempster nearly lost his life on several occasions when rock slides caused his steam shovel to flip over. He also contracted typhoid fever, and bickered with famed physician William C. Gorgas over the most effective treatment. One of Dempster's earliest innovations was a device that allowed his shovel's dipper to mechanically empty its load. Business career After returning to Knoxville, Dempster, along with his brothers, Thomas and John, formed the Dempster Brothers Construction Company, which built roads, railroads, and small dams in Tennessee, North Carolina, Georgia, Virginia, and Kentucky. While initially lucrative, the company was forced into bankruptcy at the onset of the Great Depression. Dempster's Fountain City home (still standing at the corner of Broadway and Gibbs) was auctioned off to pay his debts. In spite of these setbacks, Dempster and his brothers reorganized their remaining resources to form Dempster Brothers, Inc., which focused on heavy machinery. In 1935, the company introduced the "Dempster-Dumpster," the first large-scale waste