The Steppes was the home of the Wilson family for a period of 112 years that began in 1863. During this time, the Wilsons were a focal point of the life of the area. The arrival of James Wilson at the Steppes in 1863 was intertwined with the growth of sheepgrazing in the highlands. With the pilfering of stock, police districts were created on the plateau and mounted police employed. A police station was constructed at the Steppes in 1863 and James Wilson, due to his extensive knowledge of both stock and the Lake Country, was offered the position of Superintendent of Police, a position he held for 30 years;;James Wilson married Jessie Moyes, the daughter of a Bothwell publican in 1874. Jessie and James raised five children at the Steppes; a sixth child died in infancy. James was made redundant when the police station was closed at the Steppes in 1894. The Wilsons were allowed to stay as tenants of the Police Department. Ten years later he purchased a 17 acre property about one kilometre from the homestead. James died in 1922, aged 85. Mrs Jessie Wilson and her three daughters continued to live at the Steppes. The two sons William and Archie moved away, married and bought farms of their own. Archie returned to the Steppes when his marriage failed and lived there to his death in the 1950s. Mrs Jessie Wilson lived at the Steppes until her death in 1946 at the age of 99 years.;;The Wilson family all had a close affinity with the bush they lived in and, in 1929, Miss Mary Wilson approached the Animal and Birds Protection Board (a forerunner to the Parks and Wildlife Service) with the suggestion that the former police reserve at the Steppes become a bird sanctuary, in part as a memorial to her father. The reserve was gazetted in 1930.;;The last of the family was Miss Marjorie (Madge) Wilson who lived her entire life at the Steppes. She died in 1975 at the age of 92 years;;