George Roby Dempster

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 built several houses in Knoxville, some of which still stand in Fountain City and Old North Knoxville.

Dempster hired the city's first African-American civil service secretary, and supported desegregation in the 1950s and 1960s. He championed a number of causes in support of the handicapped and the blind, including a radio program that featured blind pianists. He was given the Father Abram Ryan Award by the Knights of Columbus in recognition of his civil service shortly before his death.