Phase one of the Grange City Covered Bridge stabilization in Fleming County was completed on Wednesday, officials said.

Under the direction of covered bridge preservation and restoration experts Arnold M. Graton Associates, crews and crane operators maneuvered a supporting steel beam under the bridge end and tied it off to an anchor, preventing the bridge from slipping further.

Arnold Graton of Arnold M. Graton Associates of New Hampshire who has been instrumental in the restoration of some of the other historic covered bridges in the commonwealth, including the Goddard Covered Bridge, consulted earlier this month with Kentucky Transportation Cabinet Engineers on how to rescue the bridge from collapse.

In late May, high water and heavy rains caused Fox Creek to overflow its banks, damaging the historic 1860s covered bridge, which spans the creek adjacent to Kentucky 111 just north of Grange City.

The next phase later this year will include special-ordered steel beams to begin to upright the structure.

The bridge, located in the Grange City community south of Hillsboro, is an 86-foot-long Burr truss design built between 1865 and 1870. The bridge was closed to traffic in 1968, and placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1976.

It’s one of about a dozen covered bridges still standing in the state, and one of three in Fleming County – known to tourists as “The Covered Bridge Capital of Kentucky.”