Port Arthur
From the Simple English Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia that anyone can change
Port Arthur is a place in Tasmania in Australia.
Port Arthur was one of the first places in Tasmania to have people live there.
One day they decided to make it a prison. People say that horrible things happened at that prison, and that there were ghosts there after people died. So they decided to move the prison down to Risdon. The prison is still in Risdon.
People came to visit Port Arthur to see all the ghosts and hear all about it being a prison, and also about it being a town.
One day, the Tasmanian government decided that they wanted to make lots of money from people who came to visit Port Arthur. So they said that they would make people pay lots of money to visit. People had to pay lots of money to go to see any of the old buildings or go to see the ghosts. Many people were really angry about this becaus it had been free for so long. People came in to work as tour guides and they made many fun places to go.
On 28 April 1996, someone killed 22 people in the Broad Arrow Cafe in Port Arthur in just 5 minutes, or maybe even less. That same person killed a total of 35 people and injured 37 more from about 10pm on 27 April 1996 until about 8:30am on 29 April 1996, all the way from Port Arthur to Seascape. We call this the Port Arthur massacre. A man named Martin Bryant is in jail because he said "guilty" in court.
After the Port Arthur massacre, the Tasmanian government stopped making people pay so much to go to visit Port Arthur. They do not have as many tour guides anymore. Lots of people come to Port Arthur to see the people that died in the massacre too, so that now they have 3 things to look at - the town, the prison and the massacre.
