Burton Kendall Wheeler was born in Hudson, Massachusetts, on February 27, 1882, a son of Asa L. and Mary Elizabeth Tyler Wheeler. Wheeler graduated from the Hudson High School in 1900, and worked in Boston. He received his law degree from the University of Michigan in 1905. Shortly thereafter he moved to Butte, Montana, and began practice there on January 15, 1906, in offices in the Pittsburgh Block. Wheeler became active in the Democratic Party and was elected to the Montana House of Representatives during the Twelfth Legislative Assembly in 1911. He was a candidate for Montana attorney general in the Democrats' 1912 convention in Great Falls, but was defeated by Daniel M. Kelley. Wheeler was an advocate of the direct primary election of party candidates and other progressive policies. President Woodrow Wilson chose Wheeler for United States attorney for the District of Montana on October 30, 1913. During World War I, Wheeler was the official representative of the U.S. Department of Justice in the state.

In 1920 Wheeler ran unsuccessfully against Joseph M. Dixon for governor. In 1922, however, he was elected to the United States Senate, an office he held until his defeat by Leif Erickson in the 1946 primary.

Wheeler married Lulu M. White, daughter of John and Elizabeth White, in Albany, Illinois, on September 7, 1907. The Wheelers had five children: John Leonard, Elizabeth Hale, Edward Kendall, Francis L., and Richard. Burton K. Wheeler died at the age of 93 in 1975.