In the 1870's the towns of Burden and Cambridge did not exist. There was a community known as Lazette a short distance north of the present town of Cambridge and there was a Methodist appointment to the Lazette circuit which by 1877 included preaching at Culp Schoolhouse one and one-half miles north of the present town of Burden. The town of Burden was laid out in late 1879 when the railroad was being built and in March 1880 the South Kansas Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church appointed a pastor to the new town.