Police Say Suspect In Cheyenne Pumphouse Fire Is On Video Breaking Into Building

Cheyenne police have arrested a suspect in the fire that ripped through the 134-year-old Historic Pumphouse on Saturday night. Surveillance video captured a man identified as 35-year-old Christophe Carabajal slipping through a fence and climbing into the boarded-up building through a ground-floor window shortly before the fire broke out, the Cheyenne Police Department announced Friday. No one else was seen entering or leaving the property.

The historic structure was already engulfed in flames by the time firefighters arrived around 9:30 p.m. The blaze ripped through the roof and attic, sending flames into the night sky above the old rail corridor and drawing a large emergency response from Cheyenne Fire Rescue, the Laramie County Fire Authority, F.E. Warren Air Force Base, and police. Investigators later concluded the fire was human caused after ruling out electrical issues, environmental causes, and nearby railroad activity. The building had no utilities connected.

Carabajal was arrested Thursday on an unrelated public intoxication charge. Detectives have submitted a probable cause affidavit to the Laramie County District Attorney’s Office seeking additional arson-related charges. As of Friday afternoon, those charges had not yet been filed, and a first court appearance had not been set.

Constructed in the late 1800s, the pumphouse once supplied water for steam locomotives moving through southeast Wyoming. Later, it served as a city storage facility before sitting vacant for years. Even in its deteriorated condition, the structure remained a local landmark—an aging sandstone survivor tucked near the tracks. “It was devastating, it was gut-wrenching,” said Maren Kallas, vice president of Historic Cheyenne Inc., who spent years researching the building and working to save it. “It was like witnessing a death, for sure.”

Restoration estimates before the fire were reportedly around $4 million, and city leaders had openly wrestled with whether the structure could realistically be saved. Cheyenne Mayor Patrick Collins told Cowboy State Daily earlier this week that he and the City Council had tried hard not to become “the council to tear it down.” Despite the damage, the thick sandstone and brick walls appeared to remain standing even after the roof collapsed. The old building has survived catastrophe before, including the devastating 1904 flood that tore through Cheyenne and killed several people.

Officials said the old pumphouse had experienced repeated unlawful entry attempts for years despite efforts to secure the site. That has become a familiar issue for vacant historic buildings across Wyoming communities, where old schools, railroad facilities, hospitals, and industrial structures often sit in limbo for years because restoration costs far outpace available funding. Some become magnets for vandalism, copper theft, graffiti, squatting, or fires. For Cheyenne residents, the pumphouse is one of the last physical reminders of the city’s railroad beginnings—a soot-stained relic from the era when steam engines shaped the economy and identity of southern Wyoming. Now, city officials and preservation advocates are left waiting to see whether the old structure’s final chapter has already been written or whether the battered sandstone building still has one more fight left in it.