King Baile

It is a pleasure to write this particular post because it involves a number of areas of interest to me. First, the subject was not a “big-timer” but rather a journeyman, sideshow barker, circus promoter, pitchman, and collector. He is the long-forgotten King Baile.

His full name is Everett Bail Drumm and he was born Oct. 28, 1888, in Michigan. What prompted this post is a scrapbook on Baile assembled by my late friend and collecting mentor Frank Dailey of Indianapolis. The thick scrapbook is filled with everything Frank could find on Baile and which he obtained after some tremendous detective work. 

According to Frank, he learned that an auction house in Terre Haute, Indiana had once auctioned off the estate of a local magician. He started contacting local auction houses in the city and finally found the one where Baile’s magic had been sold. In discussions with the auction house he learned that Baile’s magic equipment had come to them stored in steamer trunks. Apparently the auction house thought the trunks were worth more than the magic and so they sold the trunks.

The magic was dumped into other boxes and then when those were needed, the magic was removed and dumped into other boxes. The auction company located the abused magic and Frank ended up with it. This included Baile’s Temple of Benares. When Frank got the magic he also learned where Baile had lived and went to the house. I believe he said that the woman who lived there was not related, but recalled that there used to be large bouquets of feather flowers in the attic and that the kids used to play with them in the street.  I think that he obtained a last few items including a number of wood-turned rice vases that Baile made himself. There is one in my collection.

Thanks to Frank, there’s enough material on Baile to do a modest lecture at a collectors event but for now, here’s what we know. Baile spent the majority of his life in the Midwest. He was born in Michigan, lived and worked in St. Louis for a while, lived and died in Terre Haute, Indiana, and was quite the showman. He also had two different throwing cards, each with Fox Lake backs in red and blue.

His career was covered in Billboard on a regular basis where Bill Hilliar notes in the early 1920s that Baile is with Omar Sami for a season. In an April 9, 1921 Billboard Baile is noted as being the side show manager for the Freed’s Exposition Shows for the season. 

By March 1925, notices appear for “King Baile and his magic company,” noting they’re playing parts of Michigan and going over big. In the early years of the I.B.M., Baile served as secretary and treasurer for Grand Rapids Ring No. 16. One of his admirers was I.B.M. President W.W. Durbin.

W.W. Durbin

At the dawn of 1930, King was the promotion and advance man for the Great Ruisselle, a Danish illusionist. This was a big show with 15 people in the cast. This was Ruisselle’s 23^rd consecutive season, 10 years of which were in Europe. The show included mind reading, escapes, cremations, levitation, disappearances, walking away from your shadow and much more. 

The Great Ruisselle 

A year later, in 1931, Baile had joined up with The Great Jaudon, a hypnotist.

In the mid-1930s, he was associated with the Seils-Sterling Big Four Ring Circus working as the barker in the sideshow, ticket taker and pitchman.  In my collection is a route book for 1936 provided by Baile as publicity for the circus.

A note in Billboard in July 1941, reports him leaving circus life behind and taking up a position with the Moose Lodge in Terre Haute. He eventually went to St. Louis where he worked as a demonstrator behind the counters of Will Lindhorst’s magic shop. TOPS said he did a great job selling magic. He even invented magic including the King Baile Koin Kan, used for outdoor shows in the Miser’s Dream. It was purely mechanical and perfect.

In the 1960s, Baile began selling new and used magic through ads in The Linking Ring. He was offering books, illusions and “many collector’s items.” His scrapbook confirms his collector status as there are letters between him and George Jenness, British collectibles dealer, for the purchase of books and magazines to add to his collection. Likewise he corresponded with David Price from Egyptian Hall Museum in Tennessee swapping items. And he was close friends with Myhrie The Magician, another long grass showman from Michigan.

And it wasn’t just books Baile was selling, a quarter page ad in The Linking Ring offered everything from a public address system to an electric chair, Super-X levitation, Beer Barrel, Checker Temple and much more. He was living at this time at 716 Pine St. in St. Louis.

An early cartoon of King Baile doing the egg production

In Spring 1967, a notice appeared in Genii that King Baile had passed away. I searched for other obituaries but couldn’t locate any. However, his death certificate shows that he suffered from sclerosis of the liver and heart disease, maladies he endured for four years before his death March 29, 1967. He is buried in Memorial Park Cemetery in Terre Haute. His wife Fern passed away March 1, 2000, at 92 years of age. Baile had one son.

Tom Ewing