Wichita ? More than three years after closing its doors in Abilene, the Kansas Sports Hall of Fame reopened Thursday at its new site in Wichita.

Memorabilia in the hall includes 52 Sports Illustrated covers with a Kansas team or person with Kansas ties on the first floor of the new 27,000 square foot facility in Wichita’s Old Town entertainment district.

Ted Hayes, Kansas Sports Hall of Fame executive director, said the new two-story hall is much larger than its original home in Abilene, which closed in the summer of 2002. The reopening followed a $1.2 million fundraising campaign.

“Our entire facility in Abilene could fit right in this space alone,” he said, standing in the corner dedicated to the hall’s inductees. “We had to make the few rows we had so tight, you could touch both sides at the same time.”

Following a ribbon-cutting ceremony Thursday morning, the first 200 visitors got in for free to get the first glimpse of the hall’s Barry Sanders section, the first Olympic gold medal won by a Kansan in 1928 and an exhibit dedicated to Kansas University basketball.

Among the hundreds of items of memorabilia, photographs and stories of Kansas sports history is a picture of Walter Johnson, who played baseball in the early 1900s and is considered to be among the best pitchers in baseball history.

K.A. Thornhill and his daughter, Judy Mann, both of Hutchinson, look at a display of trophy basketballs Thursday during the grand opening of the Kansas Sports Hall of Fame in Wichita. The Hall of Fame was in Abilene until 2002 when it closed to relocate in Wichita in a newer and larger 27,000-square foot building. The hall includes an exhibit dedicated to Kansas University basketball.

A small display in the hall is dedicated to Wichita State University football and the 1970 plane crash that killed 31 coaches, players and boosters.

Hotelier John Q. Hammons, who founded the Missouri Sports Hall of Fame, donated $800,000 this summer to open the museum in Wichita as part of the fundraising campaign.

The first Kansas Sports Hall of Fame was founded in 1961 during the Kansas Centennial Celebration. There are 141 inductees currently enshrined at the hall.

Regular admission is $7 for adults and $6 for students K-12, seniors and military. Children under 6 get in free.