SANTA ROSA -- A museum dedicated to the millions of fans of the comic strip "Peanuts" opened its doors Saturday in Santa Rosa, California, the adopted hometown of one of the world's most famous cartoonists.

The new Charles M. Schulz Museum and Research Center, which cost 8 million dollars, is the United States' first museum to honor the life's work of a cartoonist and is expected to pull in 200,000 visitors a year.

"Peanuts", the comic strip that made Schulz famous, has been carried worldwide in 2,600 newspapers and read by 350 million people in 75 countries.

In its various media incarnations, "Peanuts" has won five Emmys and two Peabody awards in the United States and in 1990 France honored Schulz with the title of Commander of Arts and Letters.

The museum itself contains everything from the "birth" of Charlie Brown, Snoopy, Lucy, Schroeder, Linus, and the other characters in the series, as well as information on Schulz' 50-year career, storyboards of "Peanuts" films and other attractions.

Since their creation as "Li'l Folks" in 1950, Peanuts was the sole handiwork of Schulz, who died on February 12, 2000, a day before his last comic appeared in newspapers.