summer noon
On September 18 , 1873 , at twelve-fifteen noon , Jay Cooke & Co. failed for approximately eight million dollars and the Northern Pacific for all that had been invested in it -- some fifty million dollars more . One can imagine what the result was -- the most important financier and the most distinguished railway enterprise collapsing at one and the same time . `` A financial thunderclap in a clear sky , '' said the Philadelphia Press . `` No one could have been more surprised , '' said the Philadelphia Inquirer , `` if snow had fallen amid the sunshine of a summer noon . '' The public , which by Cooke 's previous tremendous success had been lulled into believing him invincible , could not understand it . It was beyond belief . Jay Cooke fail ?