The protests of the residents of the old town to at least have a ferry connection in the old location after the bridge was removed were successful. However, the responsible ministry in Darmstadt initially decided that the fixed bridge would meet all the mobile needs of Offenbach residents and rejected the project.
After a private ferry company was founded to operate the service, the city took matters into its own hands and commissioned the delivery of a cable ferry including guide masts. Crossings began at the castle in the same year - and the people of Offenbach began using their new ferry. Despite the bridge on Kaiserstraße - which also had to be paid for - the citizens celebrated the one millionth crossing just six years later, on June 21, 1893. The two millionth followed on October 8, 1896. The ferry traveled from bank to bank for years.
After the destruction of today's Carl Ulrich Bridge by the bombs of the Second World War, the ferry had a particularly important function as the only connection to Fechenheim. The last ferryman after 1945, Georg Sator, took over the crossing with his own boat in 1954. In 1961, he had a new boat with a 34 hp engine built in the Netherlands, which he named "Michael Matthias" after his sons. It sailed daily from 7 a.m. to 9 p.m., but only until 1967, when a maximum of ten passengers per day could still be ferried at a price of 30 pfennigs per trip. The rapid growth in car traffic had rendered the ferry useless.