In 1825 a company was founded in Baden to introduce regular service with steamboats on the Upper Rhine.

[5] During construction, the biggest challenge was to limit the draft of the boat, while making her strong enough to carry the machinery.

During the construction of Willem de Eerste Fop Smit first applied a good solution for this problem.

This was much more than the size of the biggest barge on the Main up until then, the large Mainz Market boat (Mainzer Marktschiff) of 80 by 24 feet.

[4] The engines of Stadt Frankfurt were ordered at John Seaward & Co., which had also made those for the successful Concordia and Friedrich Wilhelm.

The different number of strokes that the cylinders made had to be handled by cogwheels, which somewhat limited the effectiveness due to friction losses.

These doubts centered on the draft, which would be too high for the Main, and on the engine power, which was thought to be too small.

[17] Meanwhile PRDG had a problem on the route from Köln to Mainz, where the water level was extremely low.

[18] At the end of the year Stadt Frankfurt was sent to Ruhrort, to be fixed by the shipyard of Jacobi, Haniel & Huyssen.

She was primarily built for passengers, but on the small stretch from Frankfurt to Mainz she was not much faster than the stagecoach.

Later in 1830 DGRM then employed Stadt Frankfurt on the Oberrhein stretch between Mainz and Schröck near Karlsruhe.

[26] While this might have been successful, it could not prevent the end of the DGRM, which had lost a lot of money, and saw no more chances to become profitable.

In January 1832, the Preußisch-Rheinische Dampfschiffahrts-Gesellschaft (PRDG) acquired all the assets of DGRM in exchange for 120.000 Thaler in shares.

Ludwig was sold as unusable, but Stadt Frankfurt was indispensable for sections with strong currents.

[26] In early 1832 Stadt Frankfurt was again in regular use between Kaub and Mainz due to low water levels.

[27] In June 1832 the water level between Kaub and Mainz became more normal, and Stadt Frankfurt again became available for the Upper Rhine.

[28] From September 1832 low water levels again made that Stadt Frankfurt served on the Middle Rhiine.

[30] In the Summer of 1832 PRDG used Stadt Frankfurt for an expedition investigate whether steamboats could reach Basel.

Gerhard Moritz Roentgen, director of NSM was chosen to lead the expedition.

According to schedule, Stadt Frankfurt would leave Kehl at 4 in the morning, so that passengers arrived in time in Leopoldshafen to transfer to the boat that left from there to Mainz at 10 am.

[33] After she got a new low-pressure engine in the winter (see above), Stadt Frankfurt was to serve again between Kehl and Leopoldshafen starting on 10 August 1834.

[34][11] Before that, the up-engined boat made an attempt to steam up the river Ill, a tributary on which Strasbourg is situated.

This failed due to a lack of depth and width of the Ill. She then made an attempt to steam up another tributary, the Little Rhine.

[39] In her final years, Stadt Frankfurt served on the middle Rhine between Cologne and Emmerich am Rhein.