Talk:Ojai, California

The Thacher School
(Do not delete; this is part of the history required under GFDL).

The material incorporated in the edit (cur) (last) 07:18, 20 Nov 2004 Dpbsmith (Merged from The Thacher School. See Talk for GFDL-required history.) was copied from material contributed by User:Armandolean in two edits of The Thacher School: (cur) (last) 18:45, 18 Nov 2004 Armandoleon m (cur) (last)  14:29, 17 Nov 2004 Armandoleon [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith (talk)]] 12:21, 20 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Veractiy of 'Lost Horizon' claim
''I am inserting user Drew's comment here, since this would be a more appropriate place for it. Also removed his signature from the top of the main article body. Let us discuss the veracity of the issue here to avoid a revert war.'' --Tenmiles 05:59, 21 July 2006 (UTC)


 * It was a hoax that the Ojai Valley is used as Shangra-La in the opening scenes of Lost Horizon. Watch the film and see for yourself. Those mountains are not Ojai's mountains. --Drew Robertson 20:04, 20 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Assuming the claim is untrue, I would be more inclined to refer to this as an urban legend rather than a hoax. The word hoax infers that the whole story (about Ojai being used during the filming of Lost Horizon) was deliberately spread misinformation, with the express intent to defraud or mislead people. I am not aware of any evidence that this is the case. Now, if the veracity of the claim is in doubt, calling it a local myth or urban legend acknowledges it as a possible fallacy, but also acknowledges its widespread belief. It seems to me that we need to determine whether or not the story is true, and we need to cite specific sources to prove or disprove the claim. I have seen the film myself, albeit years ago, and I will be the first to agree that I do not recall any clear and obvious similarities with any landscape I saw there and any I that have seen in the Ojai Valley. Nevertheless, the assertion that "The mountains are clearly not the same" is not conclusive proof that the claim is untrue. I have made a half-hearted attempt to find information on the internet regarding this story, but I was unable to find, so far, any source which contradicts this claim, urban legend or not. It is true that the majority of websites that one will find which speak of Ojai and Lost Horizon merely parrot the usual claim, and most of those sites are sites about Ojai, or local Ojai establishments, and so they tend to represent those who have a vested interest in being a part of the legend. However, a number of sites with absolutely no connection to Ojai (nor are they, in all likelyhood, edited by Ojai patriots) also mention or repeat the claim. This could be a case of an urban legend being so pervasive that simply everyone, everywhere, believes it; but given the fact that the claim is repeated so widely, even in locations that have no vested personal interest in the aggrandizement of Ojai, then it seems to me if we want to make a case for the story being untrue, we will need to dig up and cite specific sources which prove it is false. Naturally, it would be just as good, if not better, for us to find specific primary sources which confirm the veracity of the story. For the time being, I am reverting your edit and putting back the paragraph about Lost Horizon, ammending it to indicate that the factuality of the claim is disputed. I don't want to see it become a revert war; so I hope that after reading this, you can at least see my reasoning and agree to the fact that we would do well to keep a qualified mention of it (at least to acknowledge that pretty much the rest of the world believes in the story) while the matter is hashed out here, and proper sources can be found and cited that once and for all confirm or bust the myth. --Tenmiles 05:59, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Thank you Tenmiles for your courteous editing. The change you made is certainly agreeable to me. I came across this article and knowing somehow one can change Wikipedia stuff I just jumped in. I was, and still am, a bit green about the format. But about that hoax. . . I remember seeing the beginning of "Lost Horizon" on TV in the 60's after hearing that the Ojai Valley was used as Shangra-la etc. and going away puzzled as it certainly wasn't a view of the valley I would have used or was even familiar with. Then when VHS tapes came out I checked out the movie and again I wasn't convinced it was Ojai. I thought perhaps it might have been a view somewhere closer to Santa Paula or somewhere close to LA. Then in the 1980s my mother told us that a family friend who was a free-lance writer and who sometimes wrote for the Ojai Valley News had made the story up. I saw this writer and I asked him if he created this "hoax." He said that he had. I asked him why and he just smiled, shrugged his shoulders and said, "I don't know." He has sinced passed-on so he won't be able to join this discussion. I'm not even sure if he was the first person to write this Ojai/Lost Horizon thing in print but I imagine he was. However, I suppose whatever notes there are about the filming of Lost Horizon will still be the most accurate source. Be that as it may, I know he did this out of some sort of Ojai boosterism and this legend has picked up a great deal of steam. (And if what I say is accurate, which I believe it is, I do think it was a hoax at the beginning. Perhaps it's an urban legend now. Or perhaps it remains forever a hoax). Thank you for Mr. or Ms. Tenmiles for taking the time and thought. Maybe somewhere out there someone knows Lost Horizon's shooting schedule. Peace--Drew


 * Well, that's an interesting anecdote, though I'd really like to know that man's name if nothing else. I choose to believe you, but that doesn't clinch the deal for me (I can't say that I believe him); ultimately, we can't base encyclopedic information (or best attempts at it) on hearsay. I respect your position for your belief on the matter, but I'm not satisfied just yet. This claim has been circulating for as long as I can remember, and is astonishingly widely-repeated. I find it suspect that this "innocent" bit of Ojai "boosterism" fabricated for a small local paper would have exploded into such widespread belief without drawing objection or contradiction (or notice?) from someone associated with the actual film. --Tenmiles 06:34, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

Folks, please see Original_research. Personal observations, testimony, interviews, etc. are not relevant to Wikipedia and certainly can't be the basis for labeling a statement "dubious"; at most it should have been tagged as needing a citation. I've added a reference to a NYT article (found with about 30 seconds of googling). -- Jibal 03:32, 14 August 2006 (UTC)


 * The reason I chose to use the dubious tag was simply because it appeared to be the most direct way of indicating that the claim was disputed and under discussion. Was there a more appropriate tag to use? It seemed to me that the 'needs citation' tag was not descriptive enough of the situation. Citations abound, but so far, none of them seem to be from primary sources. --Tenmiles 07:05, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

I've cut back the claim to mention just a process shot (according the Oxnard Convention and Visitors Bureau), since the city of Shangri-La, which was a set built on a backlot, couldn't have been shot from above Ojai. But in order to claim that the connection of Ojai to Lost Horizon is only a legend, we would need to locate someone reputable (not a WP editor or some unnamed person that a WP editor spoke to) with that POV, and I haven't been able to find such. -- Jibal 04:12, 14 August 2006 (UTC)


 * The Oxnard bureau site reads more like a promotion for the Inn, and indeed my own Googling came across that same body of text on at least half a dozen sites. While it stands as an example of an apparently credible source, it's still no more a primary source than anything else I've managed to come across online. Mind you, I'm not out to disprove the claim, I'm just 1) astonished that I've actually met someone who disbelieves it/claims it isn't true and 2) subsequently decided that what's needed is verification of a primary source to cite; ideally a quote or document attached to the production itself. --Tenmiles 07:05, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

-It's not in the opening scene, it's in the middle of the movie, and there are a bunch of artistically added craggy peaks in the shot that make it almost unrecognizable as the Ojai Valley. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.175.149.174 (talk) 16:15, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

The unsubstanciated claim about the use of Ojai in Frank Capra's Lost Horizon are back on the page. The associated reference to Fodar's Northern California Inns makes no mention of Ojai. I am restoring the wording from user Tenmiles until a acceptable reference can be found. --Apperceptions — Preceding undated comment added 16:54, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

I reorganized the way some of the information has been laid out. The Lost Horizon information was under the Film and Music heading, yet the other information under that heading pertains to film-and-musical related activities and events that are characteristics of the town, while the heading Fiction recounts exclusively mention or appearance of the town in films. It seems more logical, perhaps, to rename the Fiction heading and include the Lost Horizon item with other "appearance in film" type items. --Tenmiles 06:34, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

"Thirteen" Appearance Errors
"Ojai is mentioned in the movie Thirteen, when Evie's aunt declares that she and her niece are moving to Ojai so Evie "won't get in any more trouble." Some people believe this to be a slight at the youth of Ojai's prevalent but often ignored drug and alcohol abuse."

First, Brooke (Evie's guardian) is her cousin, not her aunt (although the film refers to her as Evie's aunt at one point, it was an error) and second, the line "won't get in any more trouble" was not in the movie, it was just "We'll be moving up to Ojai, so you won't be seeing Evie again. Ever." and then Brooke going on about how Tracy was a bad influence (which was an obvious lie anyway!) I'd correct this but don't know what to correct really. If the line isn't in the movie, the last sentence doesn't really make sense... --Zoton2 (talk) 18:04, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Anti-German sentiment or controversial white supremacy?
A recent edit changed the claim that the town name was changed from Nordhoff to Ojai as part of a widespread trend of anti-German sentiment around the World Wars, to a claim that it was changed to avoid association with supposed white supremacist attitudes of Charles Nordhoff. The wiki's own article on Nordhoff himself says nothing about white supremacist views, and reiterates the claim that the change was due to anti-German sentiment. Can anyone verify this one way or another, perhaps in the sources already linked at the end of that paragraph, which I can't access? I've reverted to the status quo meanwhile. --Pfhorrest (talk) 21:25, 2 August 2016 (UTC)

Climate data
I was checking the source for the climate data on NOAA's site and I can't reconcile many of the record lows on this page with that pdf. In fact, I can't reconcile most of the data there. Am I missing some other data source or way of interpreting this data? If not, I'll go ahead and update a ton of these climate numbers. Greg G (talk) 00:45, 13 February 2020 (UTC)
 * Climate seems like one of the areas where good faith edits are made by people who make it up or use some random information. This often goes unnoticed so I am not surprised when it is found to be a mess. Thanks for taking a look and working on it. Fettlemap (talk) 05:24, 13 February 2020 (UTC)

Orphaned references in Ojai, California
I check pages listed in Category:Pages with incorrect ref formatting to try to fix reference errors. One of the things I do is look for content for orphaned references in wikilinked articles. I have found content for some of Ojai, California's orphans, the problem is that I found more than one version. I can't determine which (if any) is correct for this article, so I am asking for a sentient editor to look it over and copy the correct ref content into this article.

Reference named "sdsu": From Chumash people:  From Music:  

Reference named "nps": From California:  From Chumash people:  

I apologize if any of the above are effectively identical; I am just a simple computer program, so I can't determine whether minor differences are significant or not. AnomieBOT ⚡ 06:27, 30 January 2022 (UTC)

Fixed this and other issues introduced by these edits]. Fettlemap (talk) 07:09, 30 January 2022 (UTC)