In the mid-1850s, America was expanding westward — fast, hungry, and ruthless. The ink was barely dry on the Gadsden Purchase when settlers began pouring into the unforgiving deserts of what would one day become southern Arizona. The land was harsh, lawless, and already inhabited by Native nations like the Apache, who fiercely resisted encroachment.
This episode begins in that volatile moment — where empires shifted, cultures clashed, and ordinary people stepped into extraordinary danger.
At the heart of this story is Larcena Pennington Page, a young woman who journeyed west with her family in search of a new life. What happened to her in the mountains outside Tucson — kidnapped by Apache warriors and left for dead in the wilderness — became one of the most remarkable survival stories in Arizona’s early history.
But before we get to that, we explore the world she lived in: a borderland shaped by conflict, hope, and unimaginable hardship.
This is more than a tale of survival. It’s about the collision of nations, the resilience of a frontier family, and the woman who walked back from the edge of death.
