The Chautauqua Sports Hall of Fame occupies 6,000-square feet of space and features thousands of pieces of memorabilia at its location on West Third Street in downtown Jamestown. One of the most recent additions to the Hall’s collection may be small in size, but its contents bring to life an era in which some of the biggest sports stars called the city home for an evening each year.

Thanks to the generosity of Lakewood resident Rich Fischer, the autograph book he brought with him for the Temple Hesed Abraham Men’s Club Sports Night in the late 1950s has now found a permanent home at the CSHOF. Included in the book are dozens of signatures, including those of Hall-of-Famers Jackie Robinson and Ernie Banks; Jamestown’s own Jim McCusker, who sat next to Robinson at the dais at the 1956 banquet; and actor Desi Arnaz. The husband of Jamestown’s Lucille Ball, Arnaz joined the gathering of 800 people jammed into the Crystal Ballroom at the Hotel Jamestown that same year when the couple was in town for the premiere of their movie, “Forever Darling.”

Fischer, now 81, said he received a ticket to the Sports Night dinners of the late 1950s as a Christmas gift from his parents. He was accompanied by his friend, Jimmy Lenna. “To see these people … some of them were my heroes,” Fischer said. “It was cool meeting them.”