In the late 1930s and early 1940s, Bloomingdale was crowded with pump jacks as an oil boom transformed the village. On August 13, 1938, after several days of drilling on the Wiggins Farm north of the village, the Fisher McCall Oil Company brought in a gusher and oil flew into the air. A scramble followed to rent land for house cars or tents, some dwellings were converted into apartments, and ninety wells were drilled in the next ninety days. Bloomingdale wells produced 19,000,000 barrels in 1938 alone, the town's population rose from 500 to more than 1000 in only a couple of months, fifteen wells were drilled on the Wiggins Farm within sixteen months, and more than 108 wells were eventually drilled within the corporate limits. At the boom's height, as many as 85 railroad tank cars left Bloomingdale in a single day from the two refineries. The prosperity was short-lived, and by 1950 only a few wells were still producing, most pumps and pipes had been removed, and the oil boom had ended.