The City of Orange Township is a place that has many reputations and yet it doesn’t seem to have an identity. From the founding of the town in 1806, it has always been diverse and bustling. The arc of its history has had many periods of swift change. We are in one of those periods once again which is why we need to talk about Orange and come to a collective understanding of where it has been, where it can go, and see how we fit in to the city as it currently stands.

Orange is our house. It represents a space that all of us share, a space that all of us live in together and experience everyday. Here we will tell the story of Orange in six different periods that we call “houses.” There are two historical houses, two contemporary houses, and two future houses.

We have done extensive research in Orange and have interviewed people on the street, people we met at community organizations and leaders we have contacted. We have come to see that Orange has abundant resources and strong, passionate community leaders yet people are not aware or do not see the value of the place. There is neither a collective narrative nor a centralized source for understanding our resources so we can build a common agenda and build a common understanding beyond our own individual interests.

This has led us to think that Orange’s future needs to be drawn from within.

Part of that is pulling forth the existing history and making it relevant to today.