Dr. Levi L. Lamborn was a physician and amateur horticulturist and politician in Alliance, Ohio. A few years after the Civil War, he showed a carnation to a friend and political opponent named William McKinley. It was one of six carnations that Lamborn had purchased to start his “Carnationary,” as he later called it. He said, “Mac, I want you to see the first carnation to bloom in America.”
Lamborn was touched by McKinley’s praise for the flower. In fact, he broke the flower off the plant and stuck it in McKinley’s buttonhole.
McKinley became a carnation fan. He considered the scarlet carnation his talisman, and often wore one in his lapel. He wore one when he was elected President of the United States on November 3, 1896.
President William McKinley often kept a bouquet of carnations in the White House. He was likely to give the carnation he was wearing to a visitor who admired it, replacing it with a fresh flower from the bouquet.
A Dark Event
McKinley wore a carnation when he attended the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo on September 6, 1901. He shook hands with a little girl who timidly asked him a favor. “Could I have something to show my friends? They’ll never believe I really and truly spoke to you.”
McKinley gave her his carnation, his good luck piece. The second person in line after the little girl carried a gun. He assassinated McKinley, the twenty-fifth president.
A Sad Commemoration
Even before McKinley’s death, a carnation league had been formed to promote the McKinley carnation as Ohio’s state flower. But there was concern that it might embarrass McKinley because the project originated with his political friends.
However, there were no objections when a bill to adopt the carnation was introduced in 1904. Carnations are grown in greenhouses in Alliance, the Carnation City, to this day.
The carnation is native to Europe, primarily the Mediterranean region.
Ohio also has an official wildflower.
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