American railway company founded in 1859 by John Murray Forbes, who combined several smaller Midwestern railroads. It grew until it extended from the Great Lakes to the Rocky Mountains. In 1901 James J. Hill bought control and sought to combine it with his Great Northern Railway and with J.P. Morgan's Northern Pacific Railway, but in 1904 the U.S. Supreme Court, in the Northern Securities case, declared the scheme illegal under the Sherman Anti-Trust Act.

In the 1930s the Burlington won attention for its well-designed, streamlined passenger train, the Zephyr, the cars of which were made of stainless steel and were pulled by a diesel-electric locomotive.

In 1970 the Hill plan was revived; the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy was merged with the Northern Pacific and the Great Northern to form Burlington Northern, Inc. (see Burlington Northern Santa Fe Corporation). The new system, which in 1980 merged with the Saint Louis–San Francisco Railway Company, had lines extending from Chicago and Minneapolis, Minn., to Denver, Colo., and the Pacific Northwest; and through Denver to Houston and Galveston, Tex.