The U.S. financial panic that followed the failure of Jay Cooke & Company in 1873 was the Panic of 1873.
Jay Cooke & Company, a major investment bank, suspended operations on September 18, 1873. The firm had heavily promoted bonds for the Northern Pacific Railway, and difficulties financing the railroad helped expose wider weaknesses in credit and investment.
The failure triggered a run on banks and forced the New York Stock Exchange to close temporarily. The resulting downturn spread through the United States and Europe and became associated with a long period of economic weakness often called the Long Depression. Railroads, banks, and businesses faced failures as credit contracted.
The Panic of 1873 is distinct from the Panic of 1893, which involved railroad failures and banking stress two decades later, and the Panic of 1907, which prompted reforms that eventually led to the creation of the Federal Reserve. The 1873 crisis also occurred in a period of major post-Civil War railroad expansion and international financial integration.