What was the name of the company whose collapse helped trigger the Panic of 1907?

The Knickerbocker Trust Company’s collapse helped trigger the Panic of 1907. The New York trust company failed after a speculative attempt to corner United Copper shares went badly wrong.

In October 1907, news of the failed scheme prompted depositors to withdraw money from Knickerbocker Trust. The run spread to other trust companies and banks, creating a liquidity crisis in New York’s financial system. Trust companies held fewer cash reserves than commercial banks and were not then supported by a central bank.

Financier J. P. Morgan organized emergency lending and persuaded institutions to cooperate. His intervention helped prevent a wider collapse, but the episode showed the weakness of relying on private rescue alone.

The Panic of 1907 became an important political argument for creating a U.S. central bank. Congress established the Federal Reserve System in 1913. Knickerbocker Trust was not the only institution affected, but its failure was the crisis’s most prominent early trigger.