Steptoe Butte, a national landmark sitting at 3,621 ft., was auctioned off to the highest bidder in early October.

From the top of the butte, a 45-minute drive from Pullman, one can see a 360-degree panoramic view of the Palouse.

C.D. “Butch” Booker, a real estate broker and auctioneer who handled the Steptoe Butte auction, said the owners wanted to sell the property, which had been in their possession since the 1940s, but were encouraged to auction it off.

They owned the farm ground, or tillable land, as well as land that wrapped around three sides of the Butte, Booker said. After selling the farm ground, they still owned the land between the ground and the state park until they decided to put it up for auction.

The winners of the auction, Kent Bassett and his wife Elaine, purchased 437 acres of the butte, three times larger than the 150-acre state park on top, for $638,000 on Oct. 5 with the desire to preserve the land.

“Our purpose is to purchase it to buy time for local (environmentalists and officials) to figure out the best disposition of the land for long-term preservation,” Kent Bassett said.

Before the Bassetts had decided to enter the auction, they had contacted several different organizations in the hopes of getting someone interested in going to the auction to save the property from development, but were unsuccessful.

That’s when they decided to bid on the Butte with another couple, Ray and Joan Folwell of Pullman. The Folwells joined a few days before the auction to help pool funds to make a serious bid. Elaine Bassett represented the group at the auction.

Kent Bassett said this was a spur-of-the-moment decision, and not one they are likely to repeat in the future.

Their reason behind purchasing Steptoe Butte was to preserve the plant life and ecosystem on the land. After the purchase, though, they learned of some historic apple orchards on the property that could potentially have apple varieties that were previously thought to be extinct.

While not their main goal, the Bassets also want the land to be open to the public, since there is so little of it left.

“The public has not too much access to public land,” Kent Bassett said. “And keeping Steptoe Butte open is less of a goal than maintaining the vital plant life and aesthetics of the place, but we think it’s important also to have open space preserved for public use.”

Kent Bassett grew up in Pullman, and had three scoutmasters who worked at WSU, and he firmly believes their influence is behind his efforts to preserve Steptoe Butte 50 years later.

“It looks like some guy from across the mountains, doing some crazy thing over there,” Kent Basset said, “but really this is the influence of Washington State University on young people in the community, bearing fruit 50 years later.”