Editing George Roby Dempster (section)

===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 (U.S. state)|Georgia]], [[Virginia]], and [[Kentucky]].<ref name=deaderick />  While initially lucrative, the company was forced into bankruptcy at the onset of the [[Great Depression]].  Dempster's [[Fountain City, Tennessee|Fountain City]] home (still standing at the corner of Broadway and Gibbs) was auctioned off to pay his debts.<ref name=tumblin />

In spite of these setbacks, Dempster and his brothers reorganized their remaining resources to form [[Dempster Brothers]], Inc., which focused on heavy machinery.<ref name=deaderick />  In 1935, the company introduced the "Dempster-Dumpster," the first large-scale waste container that could be mechanically emptied into a garbage truck.  As orders for this product arrived from around the world, the company devoted all of its resources to the production of Dempster-Dumpsters.<ref name=tumblin />  In 1939, the company introduced the Dempster-Balester, which crushed and baled automobiles.<ref name=tumblin />  During [[World War II]], the company produced [[pontoon boat]]s and other equipment for the US Navy.<ref name=deaderick />  The company introduced the [[Dempster Dumpmaster]], the first front-loading garbage truck, in the 1950s.

The Dempster Brothers plant on Springdale Avenue in Knoxville consisted of eleven buildings on {{convert|27|acre|ha}}, and employed 450 workers.<ref name=tumblin />  For humanitarian purposes, the plant employed a large number of handicapped workers.  The plant served as a training ground of sorts for welders and machinists who would later work on nearby [[Tennessee Valley Authority]] and [[United States Atomic Energy Commission|Atomic Energy Commission]] projects.<ref name=tumblin />