In mid-August 1938 near Bloomingdale, the Fisher-McCall Wiggins Estate #1 well drilled into the Traverse Limestone formation and struck oil in spectacular quantities, becoming the discovery well of the Bloomingdale Field. The field ultimately saw 437 wells drilled, including 45 on 80 acres of town lots within the village limits, and produced more than ten million barrels of oil. During the late 1930s, drilling rigs occupied much of the landscape around Bloomingdale as people signed leases for mineral rights in their back yards and drillers placed rigs as close together as possible. Three oil refineries there kept nearby Kalamazoo supplied with petroleum products during World War II. Between 1930 and 1939, more than 11 percent of all wells ever drilled in Michigan, 5,400 out of a cumulative statewide total of more than 50,000, were drilled in Van Buren County and neighboring Allegan County. Development in the field was so rapid and ruthless that oil explorer-producers and state regulators agreed on the need for legislation to rationalize and regularize drilling, resulting in Michigan Act 61 of 1939, The Oil and Gas Law, which with updates still serves as the basis for oil and gas drilling activity in the state.