In 1850, the area which would become the city of Burbank, then largely uninhabited and agrarian, became part of Lyons Township.

B. Stickney planned a large railroad transfer center which included what became the northern part of Burbank, but his ideas were never realized due to an economic depression in 1893.

In the 1920s, the area became an attractive site for real-estate developers who bought up farmland and built subdivisions.

However, ongoing drainage problems, practically nonexistent water and sewage systems and the Great Depression kept Burbank largely unbuilt and empty until the 1950s.

The city was named after Luther Burbank Elementary School, an institution which had served the area since the 1930s.

[5] According to the 2021 census gazetteer files, Burbank has a total area of 4.17 square miles (10.80 km2), all land.

Pace provides bus service on multiple routes connecting Burbank to destinations across the southwest side of Chicago and the south suburbs.