Which U.S. city was the main center of the Panic of 1907?

New York City was the main financial center of the Panic of 1907.

The panic began after a failed attempt to corner the stock of United Copper Company. When the scheme collapsed, depositors withdrew funds from connected banks and trust companies. The crisis spread through New York’s financial institutions, where trust companies had become important intermediaries but faced less stringent reserve requirements than commercial banks.

J. Pierpont Morgan organized private-sector support, gathering bankers in his library and directing emergency lending and asset purchases. His intervention helped prevent a broader collapse, but the episode exposed weaknesses in the United States banking system.

The Panic of 1907 is widely associated with the creation of the Federal Reserve System. Congress established the National Monetary Commission, and the Federal Reserve Act followed in 1913. The panic therefore links a New York market crisis with a major institutional change in American finance.