Which U.S. bank failure helped trigger the Panic of 1907, a major Wall Street market crash?

The Knickerbocker Trust Company helped trigger the Panic of 1907, a major U.S. financial crisis and stock-market crash.

In October 1907, a failed attempt to corner the stock of United Copper Company undermined confidence in Knickerbocker Trust, then one of New York’s largest trust companies. A run followed, and the institution suspended operations on October 22, 1907.

The panic spread through banks and trust companies because the United States lacked a modern central bank. Financier J. P. Morgan organized emergency support for solvent institutions and helped stabilize the banking system. The crisis contributed to the creation of the Federal Reserve in 1913.

The Knickerbocker failure was not the only cause of the crash, but it became its most famous early institutional failure. It is sometimes confused with the 1901 and 1893 U.S. financial panics, which had different triggers.