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CLOVIS — A highway marker will commemorate the site of a massive train explosion that wiped out an entire town in Roosevelt County 70 years ago.

The Clovis News Journal reports (http://bit.ly/1DEjIlO ) that the New Mexico Preservation Department has approved the marker’s placement 2 miles from where the town of Tolar once stood.

Randy Dunson, a retired railroader who applied for the marker, says incident should be recognized.

Dunson says a train carrying 160 bombs caught fire Nov. 30, 1944 and stopped in Tolar.

The ensuing explosion killed one person and destroyed nearly every town building.

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Historians say the death toll was low because most residents were at work or out of town.

The marker, along with a bent railroad track from the explosion, will be dedicated in a ceremony Nov. 21.

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Information from: Clovis News Journal, http://www.cnjonline.com