Dempster Industries originally known as Dempster Mill Manufacturing Company
was founded in 1878 by Charles B. Dempster and located in Beatrice, Nebraska. During
this time the Civil War was over and many American and Immigrant families were heading
west to take up a new life where the U.S. government was offering them homestead
land. Mr. Dempster was aware of these homesteaders would need water pumps, machinery
and tools to survive and prosper. A manufacturing plant was built to produce windmills,
hand pumps, water well products and agricultural implements. During the years following,
Dempster produced hundreds of various products and machines for the water and agricultural
industries. These included windmills,
hand pumps, well cylinders, towers, well drilling machines, fly wheel type gasoline
engines, water storage tanks, piston pumps, centrifugal pumps, jet pumps, submersible
water well pumps, and vertical turbine pumps.
During the World War II era, Dempster participated heavily in
war production by producing more than 1 1/2 million 90-millimeter shells. In 1960,
Investor Warren Buffett acquired the company from the Dempster family. During 1963,
Dempster Mill Manufacturing Co. was sold to a group of investors and the name changed
to Dempster Industries Incorporated. In 1985, the company was sold to Don Clark
and was privately owned.
In 2008 Dempster Industries Incorporated
was sold to Wallace and Felicia Davis.