In March 1889, when the San Antonio and Aransas Pass Railway reached the area, the Reynolds donated fifty-one acres of land to the railroad company as an inducement to the build a stop on the ranch. In 1908, Fennell Dibrell and Max Starcke were hired by George Reynolds, Jr., and Ernest Miller to subdivide and sell 2,500 acres cut from the Ventana Ranch and from Miller's ranch. Dibrell and Starcke platted streets, which they named for their friends. They then sold a large portion of the land to German settlers from other German Texas towns.
The developers chose the name Orange Grove for the new town, hoping to lure more settlers to the area by evoking the booming and profitable citrus industry in the Lower Rio Grande Valley.
Source: Texas State Historical Association (https://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/entries/orange-grove-tx).