Montana is a place in the imagination. It's where the West wasn't won. Big sky above, the ranches of the rich and famous below. In Butte, things are otherwise. Once a boomtown of serious proportions, Butte thrived on its copper-rich landscape. The town was unruly, scandalous, a center for Rocky Mountain commerce. Now, the open pits are mined out and the smelters have moved elsewhere. What remains, along with the dross of deserted industry, are the failing businesses, the crusty oldtimers, and the lingering memory of prosperous times. Director Schadt wanders the streets of Butte trying to reconcile the heyday with the present-day. His chief tour guide is Al Hooper, an eighty-year-old man who runs the World Museum of Mining, a dilapidated archive of mining memorabilia. Once called the "The Richest Hill on Earth," Butte is a living parable of opportunity in the late twentieth century.