Orange Park, Florida

Orange Park is a town located in Clay County, Florida, USA. As of the 2000 census, the town had a total population of 9,081. According to the U.S. Census Bureau's 2004 estimates, the town had grew to 9,243.

The name reflects the hope of its founders for a fruit-growing industry, but their crops were destroyed in the Great Freeze of 1894-95. Despite recovery elsewhere, the crops never came back to Orange Park.

Founded in 1877 by the Florida Winter Home and Improvement Company. Following the Civil War, the company purchased several thousand acres of the McIntosh plantation at Laurel Grove, for the purpose of creating a southern retreat and small farming community. The town was incorporated in 1879 by a special act of the Florida Legislature.

Orange Park was the home of the Yerkes Regional Primate Research Center, one of ten regional centers for primate research. The Orange Park center, established in 1930 by psychologist Robert Yerkes and Yale University, was the first laboratory in the United States for the study of non-human primates. In 1956, Emory University took over operation of the Center. In 1965, the center was relocated to the campus of Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia. In 2002, the Center was renamed the Yerkes National Primate Research Center, though officially the "Regional" name still applies.