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>> aaron: no, you nailed it. obviously the pit is an enduring emblem of that rapacious capitalist greed. but you also have people here who are proud of -- proud of where they live. the history of butte in many ways is you know this town that should have died but never did. part of that is luck geographically but also the character of the people here. you know, they endured. >> anthony: as you might have gathered by now, this is a working class town. and unusual in that it's a union town. a proudly union town in an otherwise very red state. >> bryant: butte is the most interesting, important to...

Aaron: no, you nailed it. obviously the pit is an enduring emblem of that rapacious capitalist greed. but you also have people here who are proud of -- proud of where they live. the history of butte in many ways is you know this town that should have died and but never did. part of that is luck geographically but also the character of the people here. you know, they endured. >> anthony: as you might have gathered by now, this is a working class town. and unusual in that it's a union town. a proudly union town in an otherwise very red state. >> bryant: butte is the most interesting, important t...

There was money down there to be dug out of the ground and that's what butte had always been about from the beginning. in 1983 the pumps that held back the ground water from thousands of miles of tunnels beneath the city were turned off. the pit filled with thirty billion gallons of water. and as mine tailings and mineral refuse contaminated the water it became a giant insanely toxic lake of sulfuric acid. a monument to greed and heedless exploitation of the earth and something eerily, yet, tragically beautiful. if you're still living here, you've got to have some kind of weird perverse pride ...

There was money down there to be dug out of the ground and that's what butte had always been about from the beginning. in 1983 the pumps that held back the ground water from thousands of miles of tunnels beneath the city were turned off. the pit filled with thirty billion gallons of water. and as mine tailings and mineral refuse contaminated the water it became a giant insanely toxic lake of sulfuric acid. a monument to greed and heedless exploitation of the earth and something eerily, yet, tragically beautiful. if you're still living here, you've got to have some kind of weird perverse pride ...