The Panic of 1901 was the US financial panic that began with the failed attempt to corner Northern Pacific Railway stock.
The struggle involved financier E. H. Harriman and banker J. P. Morgan on one side, and railroad magnate James J. Hill with Northern Pacific chairman Henry Villard’s allies on the other. Northern Pacific shares soared from roughly $45 to more than $1,000 before the corner collapsed on 9 May 1901.
The resulting selling damaged the broader market, especially railroad securities, and helped produce the first major panic on the New York Stock Exchange in the twentieth century. Unlike the Panic of 1907, it did not become a prolonged nationwide banking crisis.
The episode is often confused with later railroad panics because railroad consolidation and speculation were central to several crises. A notable consequence was the creation of Northern Securities, a railroad holding company that the US Supreme Court later ordered dissolved in 1904 under antitrust law.