CHEYENNE — The city’s historic 1892 brick and stone pumphouse building was spared a date with the wrecking ball by the Cheyenne City Council in December, but it couldn’t escape a devastating fire that ripped through it Saturday night.
Someone who noticed smoke and flames coming from the building reported it after 9:30 p.m. Saturday, and by the time firefighters responded, the building was already heavily involved with parts of its roof caving in, said Cheyenne Fire Rescue Chief Andrew Dykshorn.
“The roof was partially involved and had caved in by the time we got there,” he told Cowboy State Daily on Sunday morning.
Although the fire was put out in about two hours, firefighters were still at the scene at 1504 Dillon Avenue on Sunday investigating the fire and tending to “hot spots,” he said.
“Our crews were still finding hot spots up until about 9 o’clock this morning,” Dykshorn said.
As for what started the fire, the fire chief said it’s too early to tell and their investigation is ongoing.
“Because the building’s not safe to occupy or go in,” he said, that means they’re using other methods to look around inside the pumphouse.
“We’re still flying drones inside to see what’s going on,” Dykshorn said, adding that “we do not have anything at this time” to indicate how the fire started.
He also said that because the building is not being safe to enter, fighting it happened from outside the structure. Even so, that doesn’t mean they “let it burn,” the chief said.
“We don’t typically let things burn,” he said. “In this case, we just had difficulty getting the water where it needs to be because of the roof’s lines. But we had it out about after two hours.”
Dykshorn said he’s not aware of anyone being seen in, entering or leaving the pumphouse building immediately prior to the fire, but that firefighters are still using drones to check inside to make sure nobody was inside when the building burned.
‘Devastating’
Maren Kallas, vice president for Historic Cheyenne Inc., has spent years researching the pumphouse and working to save it.
Saturday night she watched it burn, then was at the site again Sunday as firefighters continued to put out hot spots. Along the way, she helped them fight the fire in a way that wouldn’t cause more damage.
Watching as the roof burned and caved in “was devastating, it was gut-wrenching,” she said. “It was like witnessing a death, for sure.”
“The saving grace is that it’s very well-built,” she said, adding that because of its stone structure, the roof and rafters were mostly what burned.
Those had already been targeted for replacement for whenever a renovation effort could happen, Kallas said.
“It’s connected to Cheyenne’s origin story, so to lose it would be a profound cultural loss,” she said. “It was 122 years ago almost to the day that the largest flash flood in Cheyenne’s history happened in 1904 and the pumphouse was completely flooded.
“Now a big fire in 2026, and it’s still standing somehow, so it’s not a lost cause.”
Megan Stanfill, executive director for Alliance for Historic Wyoming, also has been working with the city to save the pumphouse. It’s on the group’s watchlist of historic properties in serious jeopardy of being lost.
A fire like Saturday night’s “has been a concern that we’ve had from the beginning,” she said, because it invites vagrants to go inside and start fires to keep warm.
“It’s a magnet for vagrants, and you could see inside there were people who were setting little fires and stuff,” Stanfill said. “We’re lucky it’s a stone structure and a lot of the wood is the roof and rafters and stuff.”
That’s a big reason why the city had set a Jan. 14 deadline for someone to buy or lease the building or it would be torn down, but that was set aside in favor of a new resolution to “place the property back into beneficial use.”
Estimates for restoring the pumphouse have come in at $4 million. The city has tried to sell or lease it, but nobody so far has seemed interested.
Not ‘Super Sketchy’
Because the city has been considering tearing the pumphouse down if it can’t find a buyer or someone to restore it, news of Saturday night’s fire also sparked wild speculation that it was deliberate.
“Somebody gave it the old Hitching Post treatment, eh?” said one commenter on the Cheyenne Police Department’s post about the fire, referencing a 2010 blaze that burned the old Hitching Post Inn.
“City wants it gone suddenly it burns? … This is super sketchy!!!” said another.
“I like a good conspiracy theory, even though I find most of them unfounded,” said a third, “however the burning of this structure at this time is mighty suspicious.”
Dykshorn said he’s aware of the conspiracy-theory-type comments, but said he’s so far seen no evidence that the fire was started by arson. He also said it’s way too early to speculate or put forward theories about how it happened.
The idea that there was some type of city conspiracy to burn down the pumphouse is “ridiculous,” said Kallas.
“This is not a conspiracy, it’s just a tragedy,” she told Cowboy State Daily from near the site of the pumphouse fire.
She had been at the site since Saturday night watching the fire department fight the blaze burning what she called one of Cheyenne’s most historically meaningful early buildings.
She also said that she was told by a fire investigator that less than 24 hours before the fire, Cheyenne police kicked out a group of people inside the pumphouse who had started a fire, which was put out.
It’s believed some of those people may have later returned, she said.
A call to the Cheyenne Police Department’s spokeswoman hadn’t been returned by the time this story was published to confirm Kallas’ account.
“It’s not a conspiracy,” she said. “It’s just a tragedy.”
A fire ripped through the 134-year-old Cheyenne Pumphouse on Saturday, raising questions about whether a building once been set for demolition can still be saved. Watching it burn “was like witnessing a death, for sure,” says a local preservationist. On Sunday morning, firefighters were still at the scene putting out hot spots. (Courtesy Alliance for Historic Wyoming)
What’s Next?
The main thing Stanfill and Kallas want to focus on now is that the pumphouse can still be saved and restored.
They both expressed initial concerns that the fire could prompt the Cheyenne City Council to rethink its December decision to hold off demolishing the building while working to do something with it other than let it remain a “magnet for vagrants.”
“The big message we want to get out right now is this isn’t a lost cause,” Stanfill said. “We’ve already been having discussions among preservationists about what this (fire) means.”
While a damage assessment hasn’t been done yet, the building was mostly stone and brick, meaning what burned was likely to be replaced anyway, she said.
“The plan all along was to completely replace the roof,” she said. “We’re pretty hopeful now that this might actually be helpful in our efforts to bring attention to the building and clear a pathway.”
Kallas agreed.
“There is a genuine fear that the council will renege on their commitment, because if they get rid of that building, nothing can be put there in its place,” she said. “It’s in a flood plain.”
Both women said the Cheyenne fire crews fought the fire with preservation in mind.
While it’s devastating for the pumphouse, “this is a heroic story of our fire department that put this out while saving it to still be saved,” Kallas said.
Contact Greg Johnson at greg@cowboystatedaily.com
Greg Johnson can be reached at greg@cowboystatedaily.com.
