What was the name of the U.S. bank whose 1873 failure helped trigger the Panic of 1873?

Jay Cooke & Company was the U.S. bank whose failure helped trigger the Panic of 1873.

The firm suspended payments on September 18, 1873, after it could not sell enough Northern Pacific Railway bonds. The collapse damaged confidence in railroad finance and helped set off a banking and stock-market panic in the United States. The New York Stock Exchange temporarily closed for the first time in its history.

The panic had international causes as well. Germany and Austria experienced financial stress, railroad investment had expanded rapidly, and the failure of Vienna’s stock exchange in May 1873 had already shaken markets. Falling prices and reduced investment then contributed to a long depression.

Jay Cooke & Company was a prominent government financier during the American Civil War and later promoted railroad bonds. Its failure did not create every condition behind the panic, but it was the immediate U.S. shock that made the crisis dramatically worse.