After the territorial supreme court was dissolved at statehood, Burford served as City Attorney for Guthrie, Oklahoma, where he had made his home.

His father was Reverend James Burford, a Baptist minister in Indiana, who had various ministries in that state, and where he lived out the rest of his life.

Subsequently, he was chosen as chairman of the Republican Party Central Committee for Indiana, which secured the election of Benjamin Harrison as President of the U.S. in 1888.

[2] Burford left Indiana and came to Oklahoma Territory in 1890, where the first governor offered him the job of Probate Judge for Beaver County.

He only stayed two days before he resigned and moved to Oklahoma City, where President Harrison appointed him as Registrar of the Land Office.

[1] President William McKinley appointed Burford as Chief Justice of the Oklahoma Territorial Supreme Court on February 16, 1898.

[d] His reappointment would continue under President Theodore Roosevelt, in effect making him the final Chief Justice, since the Territorial Government was dissolved when Oklahoma was proclaimed a state on November 16, 1907.

He continued in the leadership of the state Republican Party, which rewarded him by making him their unanimous choice candidate for the office of U. S. Senator in 1914.