The physician Dr. Heusner and the local businessman Jacob Mallmann opened the "Mühlbad" (baths) at Remigiusplatz (square) in 1841. Under Jacob's successor, Josef Syrée, who between 1848 and 1892 was Boppard's mayor, the town developed into a tourism centre and a spa. This new industry was furthered by the building of the Koblenz-Bingerbrück railway and the railway station in 1859. Steamship traffic on the Rhine, too, led to an upswing in the town's fortunes as a tourist centre. The Catholic middle and lower classes and the liberal, upper-class newcomers often found themselves at odds with each other, and this broke out into the open in 1872 with the Kulturkampf, which lasted several years. In particular, Mayor Syrée's and his liberal followers’ conversion to Old Catholicism brought yet another religious figure into the fray. As the representative of the Catholic middle and lower classes, the long-time dean Berger, who also enjoyed some fame as a poet, was the mayor's opponent.