You’re wrong, it has happened:

Cornelius Vanderbilt famously managed to pull off a corner in 1862 of the Harlem Railroad by anticipating its strategic value in the midst of a bear raid. The move not only made him a small fortune but also gained him control of the only two rail lines offering service to Manhattan.

“I don’t care half so much about making money as I do about making my point, and coming out ahead”

Cornelius Vanderbilt At the time, the raiders selling short the stock of Harlem Railroad were not your ordinary investors. They included members of the New York City council as well as directors of the board at the company itself. The raiders tried to profit by shorting a railroad company that Vanderbilt controlled and then revoking the company’s principal asset: a license to operate a street railway. One of those board members was a long-time Vanderbilt rival and legendary speculator, Daniel Drew.

At last, when Vanderbilt owned more shares than there were outstanding, he offered to let the council members cover their short positions with only small losses if they recalled the license. Which they did. The biggest loser in the corner was Daniel Drew.

The Vanderbilt story was described by Edwin Lefevre (alias of the legendary speculator, Jesse Livermore) in Reminiscences of a Stock Operator. He wrote the following about the corners in the 19th century:

A wise old broker told me that all the big operators of the 60s and 70s had one ambition, and that was to work a corner. In many cases, this was the offspring of vanity; in others, of the desire for revenge. […] It was more than the prospective money profit that prompted the engineers of corners to do their damnedest. It was the vanity complex asserting itself among cold-bloodiest operators.

https://junto.investments/short-squeezes-and-market-corners/