Although the less communal stock company system of Brigham City was at least as successful financially as was Orderville, it did not capture the imagination and live on in the collective memory of Mormons. Orderville became the symbol of the United Order for subsequent Saints, a daring and near-successful effort to build the City of God on earth. Celebrated in song and legend, Orderville is in the minds of most Mormons today a model of selflessness, devotion and future obligation. In fact few today seem to realize that the United Order of Enoch was attempted outside of Orderville.

Sporadic efforts were made in the 1880s to implement some form of the United Order, especially in the founding of new colonies, and of course some organizations, such as Orderville and Brigham City, continued for a decade or more after founding. Yet it was clear by 1876 that the mass involvement Young had hoped for would not materialize. Asked in the last year of his life if he had launched the effort on his own or through revelation, he replied that he "had been inspired by the gift and power of God to call upon the Saints to enter into the United Order of Enoch and that now was the time, but he could not get the Saints to live it and his skirts are clear if he never says another word about it."