This extremely obscure maker is known to have been in business from at least 1888 to 1891. The principals were Carl Gail, Herman Unzicker, and probably Emil Bumiller. At some point, perhaps quite early on, Unzicker left the partnership and the name changed to Gail & Bumiller.

Information Sources

• Thanks to Fred Deard for bringing his bandsaw to our attention and for meticulously cleaning the casting sufficiently for the name to be legible. The name on the saw appears to read "GAIL, BUMILLER & UNLICKE". That was sufficient for us to find the correct version of the name in a couple of sources from the late 1800s.
• Transactions of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers for 1888 has a listing for "Unzicker, Herman—Mech. Eng. Gail, Bumiller & Unzicker, Chicago I. W. Willow St. & Hawthorne Ave., Chicago, Ill."
• An 1891 catalog from Niles Tool Works has a listing of the makes they carry, including "Gail, Bumiller & Unzicker, Chicago, Ill."
• Proceedings of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers for May 1907 carried an obituary for Herman Unzicker:

  Herman Unzicker was born June 7, 1846, in Hessen Nassau, Germany. His preliminary education was received in a technical school, and he served an apprenticeship of several years in a machine shop, later attending a technical school in the State of Brunswick, Germany. Upon leaving school he was engaged as draftsman and designer in several machine shops, and had charge of works as mechanical engineer and foreman.

  He came to the United States in 1872 and found employment as draftsman in Chicago, Ill. In May, 1888, he became general superintendent and engineer of the shops of Fraser & Chalmers, Chicago, 111., with which firm he remained 14 years, as designer and constructor of plants and machinery for the mining and reduction of all classes of ores.

  In 1890 Mr. Unzicker organized the Chicago Iron Works, which, however, succumbed during the panic of 1893. Since that time he has been contracting and consulting engineer with E. P. Allis & Co., Fraser & Chalmers, and the Allis-Chalmers Co. At the time of his death, February 7, 1907, he was consulting engineer with Chalmers & Williams.

• Volume LXI of The American State Reports, 1898, gives the case of Shepard v. Blossom, 66 Minnesota, 421, which involved a dispute about whether machinery in a building are considered part of the building for the purposes of a mortgage. One of the machines in question was "A 36-inch Gail and Bumiller band-saw machine, which rests on the floor by its own weight. Used for curved or circular sawing." That machine was not considered part of the building.
• The North Western Digital Archives lists 1886 correspondence with "Gail and Bumiller".
• The 1890 Chicago Blue Book lists Mr. and Mrs. Carl Gail, residing at 145 Pine Street, and Ferdinand Gail, residing at 270 Erie Street. No Bumillers are listed.
• The 1894 Chicago Blue Book lists just one person with the surname Gail: "Gail George F. 427 Huron". It lists one Bumiller: "Bumiller Emil, 420 Belden Ave." It mentions Herman Unzicker and Otto Unzicker as members of a club, the "Germania Mænnerchor" (male choir).