The Kansan

July 31, 1919

JJ was born and raised in Jackson county, Mo. died at his home in Concordia, Ks on Tuesday, July 29, 1919, at the age of ninety years. Joe Burns belonged to that type of hardy pioneerswho are about all passed away, and of which the younger members of the present generation know very little. As a boy he roamed the woods in the hunt for wild game where the wonderful Kansas City now stands. He was in the full vigor of manhood when the "war of sections" as Colonel Wattersom called it. Was ravaging the border counties of Kansas and Missouri, and took the side of the south in that struggle. Before the railways connected the placer mines of Colorado and Wyoming with the outpost of civilization at Westport and St. Joseph. Joe Burns was a wagon boss of teaming outfits that carried the commerce along the long trails across the plains. At the close of the era and at the end of the war, when the bull teams were supplied by the railways. Burns came to Cloud county when but a few had preceded him and had lived there ever since. He was a prominent factor in the early settlement of this country and in the founding of Concordia. He was a charter member of the Masonic Lodge of the city, and was its first treasurer and he remained a faithful member of the lodge until the end.