He originally immigrated with his wife from Middle Silesia to the United States in 1862, first residing in Minnesota, where he started his family, then moved to the Seattle area, where he became a prominent citizen.
[2] After arriving in America, Burian and his wife established their first home in St. Paul, Minnesota where they began raising a family and Gottlieb worked as a shoemaker.
Burian soon owned two successful taverns, became active in the city's German community, and purchased a large home in Seattle's Capitol Hill neighborhood.
[3] In 1884, Gottlieb Burian found an attractive homestead site on unsettled, forested land on the southeast corner of Lake Burien in Sunnydale, 12 miles south of Seattle.
Litigation was finally settled in 1904 by the Washington State Supreme Count which overturned a Superior Court decision and ruled in his favor with his wife and daughter substituted as plaintiffs.