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Those ProFusion heaters at Northern look like a good way to go. If I were doing it over I would order one of the 5000 watt and one of the 7500 watt heaters and hook them together. Both have two load settings. Looks like about $250 for the two heaters shipped to my place.
Cheapest load bank would be an electric range. Won't take up more space than the 55 gal drum you are considering.
I made a fairly compact load bank using dryer elements and a 10" condenser fan. It wasn't as cheap or easy to build as a used electric range off of CL though.