The Panic of 1873 was the financial crisis commonly credited with ending the era of rapid railroad speculation in the United States.
The crisis followed the failure of Jay Cooke & Company in September 1873. The firm had heavily promoted bonds for the Northern Pacific Railway, and investor confidence collapsed when railroad financing became harder to sustain. The New York Stock Exchange closed temporarily, and the panic spread through banks, railroads, and businesses.
The downturn was part of a wider international depression. In the United States, falling prices, bankruptcies, and unemployment contributed to a long contraction often called the Long Depression. The railroad sector, previously a major engine of expansion and speculation, underwent extensive restructuring.
The Panic of 1873 is sometimes confused with the worldwide depression that followed, because historians use overlapping labels and dates. It also differed from the Panic of 1893, which had separate triggers including railroad failures and problems with the silver-backed monetary system.