One man’s trash spawns another man’s world-changing invention. Knoxville businessman, inventor, and politician George Dempster was the mastermind behind the Dempster Dumpster, the modern dumpster that transformed the garbage collection process. His inventions don’t stop there either — the word “dumpster” was invented along with the machinery.
Here’s how the influential Knoxvillian went from manual laborer to millionaire to mayor.
Rubbish brings riches
A son of Scottish and Irish immigrants, the Knoxville native began inventing in his teens while working as a steam shovel operator on the Panama Canal. Although he was called lazy for it, he mechanically engineered his shovel dipper (aka the scoop on an excavator) to empty itself. The idea caught fire, and all shovels were required to be mechanized the same way shortly after.
But it was more than two decades later, in 1935, when Dempster’s invention would revolutionize public sanitation.
Dempster and his siblings created Dempster Brothers Inc. — the launching pad for the dumpster as we know it today. The Dempster Dumpster was the first commercial receptacle that could be picked up by a truck. It transformed what used to be a slow and labor-intensive collection into a much speedier and more efficient process. Just watch the dumpster in action in a 1940s silent film.
Fun fact: The first dumpsters in existence were placed along an alley where Krutch Park now resides.
The Dempster Corporation had more than 75 patents to its name, making all kinds of models of the Dempster Dumpster.
From garbage to government
At the same time Dempster created the revolutionary trash receptacle, he was serving as city manager of Knoxville. And although not everyone was keen on a multi-millionaire industrialist serving in public office, the people of Knoxville liked him enough to elect him mayor in 1951. During his tenure, he oversaw the construction of the Henley Street Bridge, Bill Meyer Stadium, and a vast sewage disposal system, and dedicated four public libraries.
So next time you throw Alabama merch in the trash where it belongs, say a quick thank you to former Mayor George Dempster, the local who invented the dumpster.
