Originally christened as SS Lamington, she was launched on 23 August 1881 for the shipping firm Renton and Company, Glasgow, who planned to use her on their Adelaide, Melbourne, and Sydney, Australia route.

[6] By July 1891, Lamington was transporting coal from the east coast of the United States, when she was rammed by the Old Dominion Steamship Company's Guyandotte off Lambert's Point, Virginia.

[7][8] On 5 February 1896 the Lamington, hauling fruit from Valencia, Spain to New York City ran aground 15 miles east of the Fire Island Lighthouse.

[9] Salvage operations began almost immediately by men and tugs from the Merritt Wrecking Company, which likely kept her from breaking up during a storm that swept waves in over the deck and pushed her farther inland.

[14] By April 1897, with her home port in Boston and renamed Sterling, she was moving coal along the United States' Atlantic coast, from as far south as Newport News, Virginia to as far north as Portsmouth, New Hampshire.

The Flying Squadron's commander, Commodore Winfield S. Schley, noted the Sterling lacked a hoisting engine, and deemed her insufficient for coaling his forces.

She was then assigned to the North Atlantic Squadron where, on 27 May, Rear Admiral William T. Sampson sent her, under escort of the USS New Orleans to join the blockade of Santiago de Cuba.

On 31 December 1898, Sterling left Montevideo for San Juan, Puerto Rico,[20] where she took the crippled USS Topeka in tow to Norfolk, Virginia for repairs.

[26] By late September, repairs were completed at the Charlestown Navy Yard[27] and Sterling was one of seven colliers identified to support Admiral George C. Remey's Asiatic Squadron.

[29] Before she could resume her role of carrying coal for the Atlantic Fleet, she and the USS Illinois were ordered to New Orleans, Louisiana to support testing a new floating dry dock there.

[37] For the remainder of 1902 she was active along the east coast, transporting coal and supporting naval war games, until late in December when she was damaged in a collision with the USS Texas off Culebra, Puerto Rico.

[48] In August 1912, Sterling transported the foremast of the battleship Maine, which was blown up in Havana Harbor in 1898, from Governor's Island to Annapolis, where it was later erected on the grounds of the Naval Academy.

[55] Sterling spent the remainder of World War I supplying American bases and ships with fuel to maintain a steady flow of men and materiel to the battlefields in Europe.