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Orson is a village in Preston Township, Pennsylvania, United States, situated in the Lake Region of the Poconos. It was once an important depot of the Scranton Division of the New York, Ontario & Western (O&W) Railway, but today, when it is known outside of its immediate vicinity, it is largely for being the site of the intersection of two state roads, Belmont Turnpike (partially concurrent with Pennsylvania Route 670, or PA 670) and Crosstown Highway (entirely concurrent with PA 370), or as the location of Independent Lake Camp (ILC), since ILC's reputation and commercial reach, like those of most rural American summer camps, extend beyond the community in which the camp is physically located.

Two Pennsylvania Department of Transportation (PennDOT) signs on Crosstown Highway identify the community as the "Village of Orson." In Pennsylvania, a village is an unincorporated community within a township, but PennDOT identifies most villages with roadside signs, a fact that might reasonably lead those unfamiliar with this practice to believe that these communities are incorporated municipalities administered separately from the townships in which they are located. Since Pennsylvania's villages, including Orson, are, in fact, not municipalities in their own right, they do not have official boundaries, and the United States Census Bureau does not collect statistics for them (unless, unlike Orson, they are census designated places). In spite of this, because of strong local consensus, as well as the fact that many features are named for the villages they are associated with, it is almost always possible to consistently determine whether a particular feature is in one village or another.

Notable natural features located in Orson include Mount Ararat (partially in Belmont Corners, Pennsylvania, and sometimes called Ararat Mountain, Ararat Peak, Ararat Summit, or simply "Ararat" and sometimes known today as Lake Independence or Lake Independent), Mud Pond (formerly called Sugar Loaf Peak (the other three being Bone Pond, or Summit Lake, and Lake Lorain, or Five Mile Pond, in Poyntelle; and Dunn Pond, or Dunns Lake, in East Ararat). It is fed by natural springs on the lake bottom. Orson Pond, a reservoir once used for ice harvesting and other economic activities, was originally a much smaller body of water, but was expanded significantly when the Orson Pond Dam, or Orson Dam,). Oxbow is designated PA 4035, and is part of neither PA 670 nor Belmont. Township roads in Orson include Blewett Road (Township Road 678, or T678) of Woodbridge, Connecticut, in 1840 (note that the apostrophe is dropped) is still the accepted name for the intersection of Clark and Oxbow, and it is labeled as such on the United States Geological Survey (USGS) topographic quadrangle map which includes Orson (the quadrangle also being called "Orson"). Hine's Corners quickly grew to a reasonable size and appears in F. W. Beers' 1872 Atlas of Wayne County. The population subsisted in large part on agriculture,) was completed in July 1876. Hine's Corners Post Office opened on September 8, 1873. On December 25, 1878, Orson C. Chamberlain, a great grandchild of Catharine and Merritt Hine, died of diphtheria in an epidemic that affected many people in the area. The community came to be known as Orson Corners the latter being a variant name for Belmont Corners. The Orson/Belmont depot, which had the call letters "BM," It was finally abandoned in 1957 after the O&W went bankrupt, and this event largely marked the end of Orson's notability outside of its contiguity. Many of the village's business establishments closed soon after the railroad did, with the notable exception of the summer camps that would gradually come to replace the railroad as Orson's main source of supra regional prominence. The first of these was Camp Nehantic, a Jewish girls’ camp that was founded in 1919 by Harry Davidson and his wife, and that had originally been located on Crescent Beach in Niantic, Connecticut. Between 1925 and 1926, Nehantic moved to the western bank of Independent Lake, in Orson, and soon became an important part of the community's economy. and 1937, it closed and was replaced in 1937 by Camps Carmelia and Keeyumah, twin Jewish camps for girls and boys, respectively. These two had both opened around 1928 on the banks of Lake Champlain in Milton, Vermont (at least one source says they were located in Oneonta, New York, when they were consolidated into one coeducational, Jewish camp that seems to have been administratively distinct from them, but was nevertheless also called Camp Keeyumah. This Keeyumah was open until 1974. Echo Lark had been founded in 1923 in Hyde Park, New York, and had moved to Poyntelle in 1927. Originally a Jewish girl's camp under the direction of Augusta Nomburg, or 1940 (two additional sources say 1932 and 1935, respectively, but they cannot be independently verified). Echo Lark was subsequently owned by Ben Applebaum from 1968 (or 1969) until 1974, when he sold it to Robert and Zelda Gould. New England Experience had relocated from Avon, Connecticut, where it had been founded in 1983. It had originally been associated with French Woods Festival of the Performing Arts, after the western bank had been vacant for seven years, a new camp, called Camp Westmont, took over the property. This situation continued until 1992, when Westmont and New England Experience switched places, with Westmont moving to the lake's eastern bank in Poyntelle, where it remains today, and New England Experience relocating to the western bank in Orson. In addition, New England Experience changed its name to NE2 at Independent Lake, and became alternatively known as "Independent Lake Camp." By 1995, the latter moniker had fully replaced the former, a phenomenon which had the effect of obscuring the link between ILC and the original Connecticut camp for those who began attending or working there after the name change. On September 13, 2001, the owners of ILC, Dan and Anne Gould, purchased land on a nameless hill to the south of the lakefront. This new area was dubbed "Elkview,") in Tirzah, Pennsylvania, which is visible from the top of the nameless hill, while the original land that had been part of the previous camps became known as "Lakeside," which was originally called Hine's Corners Cemetery, is a small family cemetery which is no longer an active burial site. It contains the graves of Catharine, David, and Merritt Hine, Orson C. Chamberlain, and other early Hine's Corners/Orson residents, and is on Clark Road across from Independent Lake. Orson Field Airport, a privately owned and operated airstrip, connects to Hines Road in northern Orson. The building that once housed the aforementioned Orson ME Church, which was officially abandoned on July 1, 2013, is located on Oxbow Road between Clark and Crosstown Highway. There are also three cell towers in the village, the first of which is owned by the North Eastern Pennsylvania Telephone Company (NEP) and is located on the above mentioned nameless hill in Elkview. The other two are owned by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the Pennsylvania State Police (PSP), respectively, and are both located on Mount Ararat, the former (which is also called Mount Ararat) a few feet southwest of the latter (which is called Waldon Remote). They are accessible by a small, nameless path that connects to Belmont Turnpike near the border of Preston and Mount Pleasant Townships. In addition, the PA O&W Trail, maintained by the Rails to Trails Conservancy, runs through Orson. At Hines Corners, there is a plaque commemorating the founding of the original Village of Hine's Corners by David and Merritt Hine. The plaque was placed there on August 9, 1925, by descendants of the Hine family. It states that the Hines founded the community in 1811, while historical sources (all of which were published before the erection of the plaque) put the founding date at either 1831 on May 9, 2008, and no longer provides postal services. The last entity to use Orson's ZIP code, 18449 (which retains legal status because the post office has not been officially discontinued), in its mailing address was Orson Corners Veterinary Clinic, and all mailing addresses within the village now employ 18439, 18465, or 18470 (the ZIP codes of Lakewood, Pennsylvania; Thompson, Pennsylvania; and Union Dale, Pennsylvania, respectively). While discrepancies between physical and mailing addresses are not uncommon in sparsely populated rural areas, where the number of locally recognized communities routinely exceeds the number of post offices, in most cases a community with a discontinued or suspended post office tends to be absorbed into a single ZIP code (e. g., Panther, Pennsylvania). Since Orson now straddles three ZIP codes, some people without a relatively high degree of familiarity with the area may mistakenly think that a given feature is actually in one of the three communities those ZIP codes primarily represent. This is especially problematic given that two of those communities, Union Dale and Thompson, are incorporated municipalities (and therefore have clearly defined borders), and are not even in the same county as Orson. However, at least in theory, it would still be appropriate to give the physical addresses of places in Orson using "Orson, PA 18449," regardless of what ZIP code these places use in their mailing addresses.

Hine's Corners/Orson has been home to four public schools over the course of its history. The building that once housed this last school is still standing and has been converted into a private residence. behind the clinic building, which he used to facilitate veterinary visits in the area. The Orson Country Inn, which is often referred to as the Orson Inn or simply "the O," was a popular congregation spot for Orson residents and visitors alike, and functions as an inn equipped with a bar and a private event space. It was located on the west side of Belmont Turnpike, but has since closed. Orson is also the location of one seasonal business, the previously described ILC, which operates annually from the second to last Sunday in June until the last Sunday in August.