According to Google Maps, the distance from the Globe area to Show Low is around 92 miles. The route, along US Highway 60, proceeds through Globe then up to Rim Country; it takes in the sharp curves leading down to Salt River Canyon, and skirts or crosses two reservations along the way.

It's possible, though perhaps unlikely at this point, that somewhere along or near that route lies the answer to a 37-year-old cold case the Gila County Sheriff's Office continues to probe, asking the question:

What became of Dr. Ellis W. List Jr.?

The Ohio physician was last seen Oct. 29, 1986. He had come to Arizona for a medical conference in Scottsdale, then embarked on a road trip to see a friend in the Show Low area. List never arrived. Detective Sergeant Jamie Garrett, of the Gila County Sheriff's Office Criminal Investigation Bureau, said List's friend reported his non-arrival.

On the way List stopped at the Copper Hills Inn in Globe, a motel that is no longer operating, and was last seen there. Garrett said investigators determined the 53-year-old doctor – he would be 90 or 91 today –  had checked out October 29. That day, apparently from the Copper Hills Inn, List spoke to his wife Charlene for the last time.

List was driving a Hertz rental car, a gold 1986 Chevrolet Cavalier with Colorado license plates reading ZAY-278. It, too, has never been found. In helicopters and afoot, authorities extensively searched the route he likely would have traveled, according to a 1986  article in The Marion

Star (a Marion, Ohio newspaper).

List reportedly left some personal belongings in a Scottsdale hotel – and that, Garrett said, is among the leads the Sheriff's Office still pursues. “We need to figure out if this is true, and if so find out where those items went,” she said.

Garrett said the case was complicated by a system crash in 2000, in which the original investigation records were lost. During the initial search for List, which covered around 2,000 square miles, the Sheriff's Office ran a check to see whether List's credit cards were used after his disappearance. Whatever that check turned up, Garrett said, was among the lost records. She added that the Globe Police had assisted with the initial investigation at the Copper Hills Inn, but as it was an agency assist those records had not been preserved.

Garrett said DNA from List's son was recently tested against unidentified human remains found in Globe in 1988, two years after the disappearance, but there was no match – meaning a second unsolved case is out there.

As they work to recreate the case file, the Sheriff's Office is attempting to track down the name of the conference List attended and will try to reach out to Scottsdale medical professionals. The List family, Garrett said, has also reached out to the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System.