In the summer of 1940, Charlestown, Indiana, was a quiet town of 900 people, but by December its population had grown to more than 13,400, with over 10,000 residents working at a single plant. This boom came with construction of the Indiana Ordnance Works Plant 1, the world's largest smokeless powder plant and part of the government-owned Indiana Army Ammunition Plant, after munitions needs for World War II led Congress to approve the first national defense appropriations act. The impact on Charlestown was overwhelming as construction workers arrived from across the country and struggled to find housing, with some sleeping in cars, tents, or rented garages, while restaurants and stores were swamped and Highway 62 was jammed with commuters. The facility soon had three complexes involved in munitions production, and at its peak its 1,700 buildings covered more than 10,000 acres behind thirty miles of fence, with 84 miles of railroad track and 190 miles of roads inside. To supply water, an immense pumping system tapping the underground aquifer near the Ohio River was installed and named for its developer, Canadian-born Leo Ranney; its seven giant radial wells could each pump 49,000 gallons per minute for a total daily capacity of 70.56 million gallons, making it still one of the largest well water systems ever built in the United States. After World War II, activity waned and the plant became a storage facility for War Department materials, then resumed munitions production during the Korean and Vietnam conflicts. The plant is now officially closed, and the property is being revitalized under the management of the River Ridge Development Authority. For a short time, German prisoners of war also supplemented the labor force there.