Mention ‘Gold Circle’ to a newer Lorain County resident, and they’ll probably give you a blank stare. But many of us who grew up in this area in the 60s and 70s remember this discount department store well from the outlet located across from Midway Mall.
It was fifty years ago this month that the Gold Circle there opened. Here’s a small article making the announcement that appeared in the Lorain Journal on March 1, 1971.
A few days later this advertisement appeared in the Journal on March 7, 1971.
The store opening was covered extensively by the Journal, which devoted two pages to the event. The paper even sent Photographer Michael F. Good there, who took some very fun and creative shots of a few of the Gold Circle employees.
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I first wrote about Gold Circle in this post from 2019.
It’s strange to think about regional chain stores like Gold Circle, Fishers Big Wheel, Hills, Ontario, Zayre, etc. as being gone. They paved the way for today’s national giants like Kohl’s or Target.
But they also helped wipe out Downtown stores in cities like Lorain. I guess it's all how you look at it.
11 comments:
Loved that store - they always had the best toys!
I loved shopping at Gold Circle.I still have my original Star Wars action figures from when I was a kid that I bought from Gold Circle.Now if a kid wants a toy they either have Walmart,Target or Amazon.That's it.
It is a real testament to the success of the Midway Mall in the early days that they received a Gold Circle store before more populated areas like CLeveland, Akron, Toledo. I guess I never realized that we had one of the first stores in all of northern Ohio.
The world is changing so fast. You better not blink or you might miss something. I have to admit though, Amazon sure is a big improvement over Gold Circle. Imagine if the old Sears Christmas catalog only required you to push a button and that toy would be on its way to you. The kids today have it pretty good. The entire internet is your Christmas catalog. Could you imagine 30 years ago being able to purchase any item in the world from one place? And of course someday people will be saying, "remember Target, Kohl's, and Amazon"?
I don't know whether Amazon is an improvement over a real live store or not.As you can go in a store and actually see things.Whereas with Amazon unless you already have an idea of what it is you are thinking about buying,you don't know how an item will look once you get it home.It could be too big or too small.Or the color might not be what you were thinking it was.Or the texture of the material.Etc.Don't get me wrong, Amazon is cool and is how it's going to be for the foreseeable future.And Sears could've been 20-25 years ago what Amazon is now.It's just that it isn't the same without actually seeing an item firsthand.And that's one reason why I miss Gold Circle and Zayres and Clarkins and K Mart and Hills,etc.I don't think anybody will miss Amazon if and when someone else takes its spot because whoever knocks Amazon off the throne will be online too.
Hah! That's my aunt Carol in the last photo.
Shopping online certainly has its shortcomings, but it has allowed the folks that don't have the ability to drive to maintain some independence in their lives. I think that's a benefit that often gets overlooked. I must also say that I do not miss the days of driving all over Lorain County looking for a certain car part or appliance repair part. With that being said, I have also had my share of clothes that didn't fit or items that weren't exactly what I was expecting. I wonder how much money Amazon pays UPS every year in packages being returned to them.
I miss the old stores. Midway Mall is so depressing and remembering how it once was even as early as the early 2000s. Amazon is not an improvement over brick and mortar. It’s funny how everyone thinks Amazon is so great but when Walmart was getting big everyone thought it was putting everyone out of business. That’s what Amazon is doing. I refuse to shop with them. Give me the days of Gold Circle, Kmart, Zayre, Ames, Hills, Sun TV and Appliances, U.S. Merchandise, Best Products, Lionel Kiddie City, Children’s Palace, Handy Andy, DIY Home Warehouse, Builders Square, Finast, Rini Rego, Higbees, May Company, General Cinemas, Clarkins, and so many others.
Let's be honest, what we really miss is our youth. All those stores have one thing in common...they are tied to our youth and the so-called good ole days.
You might be right....But will the kids of today miss doing things from their youth when they are old? As they'll probably still be doing what they were doing when they were young which is.....playing online video games and visiting online stores and watching movies and shows online....The kids of today have no real concept of what it was like to go to a store...I remember going to Hills and they had a snackbar up front and I would always get a coke and a big hot pretzel to snack on.Or a frozen Coke and big pretzel at Woolworths at the mall.Or the little food court that Kmart used to have.Or Higbees little eatery that was sunken in the ground in the middle of the store,plus they had the big restaurant upstairs.Etc....What's the kids of today have to do while they're online shopping?Nothing.Sure they can just go to the fridge and pull out their own hot dog or whatever.But it's not the same.
I remember going there with my mom in 1985 - 1986 when I was around 5 years old. Gold Circle was always the last stop and I looked forward to it because if I was good all day with her, my reward was a small cola Icee they sold before you got to the registers.
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