Flowers for Alliance, OH

Every Memorial Day, Ohioans pin a scarlet carnation in memory of President McKinley — and the flower they wear traces back here, to Alliance, which grew it into the state flower and has answered to the Carnation City ever since. That heritage is not decoration; it is a town whose identity is literally floral, tucked into the corner where Stark, Mahoning, and Columbiana counties meet along Routes 62 and 183. Life centers on the East Main and Main Avenue downtown, on the University of Mount Union campus off Simpson Street, and on Alliance Community Hospital on East State — the three points that generate most of the graduation, get-well, and sympathy orders. It is a compact enough place that deliveries can be a quick run from the shop, with the timing bending only for a Carnation Festival weekend or a home game.

Other Ohio cities.