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Matilija Dam is a concrete arch dam in Ventura County, California, completed in 1947. Designed for water storage and flood control, it impounds Matilija Creek to create the Matilija Reservoir in the Los Padres National Forest, south of the Matilija Wilderness and north of Ojai. The drainage area abo
ve the damsite is 55 square miles (140 km2), and the reservoir had an original capacity of 7,018 acre⋅ft (8,657,000 m3). Matilija Creek flows on to become the main tributary of the Ventura River. Matilija was one of the Chumash rancherias under the jurisdiction of Mission San Buenaventura. According to Dartt-Newton and Erlandson writing in American Indian Quarterly, the name Chumash means "bead maker" or "seashell people" being that they originated near the Santa Barbara coast (Newton 416).
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