[5] Burlington was originally laid out one mile west of its present location in 1887 by a man named Lowell in anticipation of the arrival of the railroad.

When the railroad did arrive, the Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railroad, it built its depot at the present site of Burlington and those who had built in Old Burlington moved their buildings to the new townsite.

[9][10] Burlington, CO is on the Loewen database of possible sundown towns, although Tougaloo College recognizes that it is "surely not" still one.

At the 2020 United States Census, the city had a total area of 1,378 acres (5.575 km2), all of it land.

[5] The easternmost interchange in Colorado on Interstate 70 is located at Burlington, 12 miles (19 km) west of the Kansas state line.

Burlington has a typical High Plains cool semi-arid climate with hot, dry summers punctuated by occasional heavy thunderstorm rains, and cold, very dry winters.

Snowfall is occasionally heavy, with an average annual amount of 33.7 inches (86 cm) – but mostly the winter weather is very dry and extremely variable in temperatures.

[16] A run of 3 years, 1910–1912, of the Kit Carson County Record is archived in the Colorado Historic Newspapers Collection.