Cincinnati's Federated Department Stores holding company introduced their first chain of discount department stores in April 1968. Two initial Gold Circle units were located in the environs of Columbus, Ohio. Each encompassed 118,000 square feet and included a 24,000 square foot supermarket.

Graphic from Federated Department Stores, Incorporated Annual Report 1967  

Gold Circle expanded operations to Dayton (1969), Cleveland (1971) and Cincinnati (1973). A second discount department store chain, known as Gold Triangle, debuted -in South Florida- in May 1970. Gold Key, a California-based enterprise, opened its first store in 1972. The early locations of these Federated divisions are shown on this diagram.

Graphic from Federated Department Stores, Incorporated Annual Report 1972  

We created a store layout of an original Gold Triangle store. The first three units were virtually identical. They were located in Plantation (a suburb of Fort Lauderdale), Kendall (a South Dade community) and the Skylake area (in North Dade). Each of the inaugural stores encompassed 76,000 square feet. As one might notice, "soft line" merchandise, such as apparel and accessories, was not carried. 

Decent quality photos of Gold Circle or Gold Triangle stores are hard to come by. Above is one of the few exceptions. The Gold Key chain of stores is pretty well forgotten and nothing still exists to commemorate it. The Gold Circle store seen above was located in northwest Columbus. It opened for business in 1969 and was shuttered -along with the Gold Circle chain- in November 1988.

Photo from Wikipedia / "Dirtyharry667"    

Before its demise, Gold Circle merged with Richway. This discount chain, a division of Atlanta's Rich's, had been inaugurated in April 1970. It bit the dust, along with Gold Circle, in 1988. 
Graphic from Rich's, Incorporated