Orangeville, UT

Orangeville sits on Cottonwood Creek in northwestern Emery County, where State Routes 29 and 57 meet at the edge of the Manti-La Sal National Forest. Castle Dale, the county seat, is about two miles east. The town began in 1878 as Upper Castle Dale, and a post office established the next year brought the Orangeville name, honoring Orange Seely, the first man called to settle Castle Valley. The 2020 census counted 1,224 residents.

The name has caused a little local confusion for generations: Orange Seely lived in what became Castle Dale, while the settlement that carries his name was the upper town along the creek. Early residents farmed, raised stock, and worked nearby mines, and those three threads still describe the wider Emery County setting. Cottonwood Creek splits the city, with roads and homes laid along both sides before the landscape opens toward the forest and the San Rafael country. Orangeville is close to the county seat without being the county seat, and its own identity comes from the creek, the pioneer namesake, the two highway junction, and the old Upper Castle Dale story.