Joseph Ralph Burton (November 16, 1852 - February 27, 1923) was a United States Senator from Kansas. Born near Mitchell, Indiana, he attended the common schools, Franklin College (Indiana), and DePauw University at Greencastle. He studied law and was admitted to the bar in 1875, commencing practice in Princeton, Indiana. In 1878, he moved to Abilene, Kansas; he was a member of the Kansas House of Representatives from 1882 to 1886 and was appointed a member of the World's Fair Columbian Commission at Chicago in 1893, representing Kansas. He was elected as a Republican to the U.S. Senate and served from March 4, 1901, until June 4, 1906, when he resigned; while in the Senate, he was chairman of the Committee on Forest Reservations and Game Protection (Fifty-seventh and Fifty-eighth Congresses). He returned to Abilene and engaged in the newspaper business. Joseph Burton died in Los Angeles, California in 1923; the body was cremated and the ashes deposited in the columbarium of the Los Angeles Crematory Association. The ashes were removed in 1928 for burial in Burton family plot in Abilene Cemetery.
