The Federal Reserve on Thursday released the names of banks that borrowed from its main emergency lending facility during the financial crisis after having run out of legal appeals to block publication.

The 25,000-plus pages of document released by the central bank provide an unprecedented view of which banks needed the most help during the crisis.

They detail not only the bank names but how much they borrowed from the Fed's so-called discount window for period of August 8, 2007, to March 1, 2010.

Discount window lending peaked on October 29, 2008, at $111 billion as the crisis reached fever pitch after investment bank Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy in mid-September.

The Fed was forced to disclose details of its discount window lending after the U.S. Supreme Court last week let stand a lower court ruling that it do so, an action the Fed had fought.

(Reporting by Mark Felsenthal and Rachelle Younglai in Washington; additional reporting by Kristina Cooke in New York; Editing by Neil Stempleman)

Lehman brothers Federal reserve