- yeah. the enduring decay. - like in detroit or buffalo or cleveland, you can see the aspirations of the builders or the people who they were building for. - as i've gotten older, i kind of think about it the way europeans romanticize those ruins in greece and rome. i view it as america's acropolis. [soft piano music] [explosion] bourdain: in its heyday, butte produced tens of billions of dollars worth of copper that built, well, america, that helped power the country, defend it against germany and japan. without this hill, no copper wire, no electricity. at the turn of the century, marcus daly's amalgamated company consumed its competitors and became anaconda copper. by the '20s, the company, as it was referred to, was one of the largest corporations in america, generating staggering wealth by today's or any day's standards.