Those who toiled in the name of preservation were honored Wednesday by Maine Preservation.

Among the 11 projects and four individuals that were recognized were two from the Mid-coast region: The Bailey Island Bridge in Harpswell — also known as the Cribstone Bridge — and Winnegance General Store in Bath.

The Maine Preservation awards recognize excellence in historic preservation throughout the state; highlight the importance of preservation, rehabilitation, and adaptive use of important historic Maine landmarks as well as heritage trades; and encourage the use of historic buildings for downtown and neighborhood revitalization.

The Bailey Island Bridge was among the honorees for restoration work.

Constructed in 1928, Bailey Island Bridge is a granite crib bridge, the only one of its kind in the country. The bridge consists of 175 spans of granite slab cribs, using the natural rock shelf as its foundation. The bridge, consisting of granite slabs dried laid with no mortar, is a National Register listed property and also a National American Society of Civil Engineering landmark. In 2000, after decades of bridge inspections and continuous maintenance, the Bailey Island Bridge was in need of major repairs or replacement.

In 2007, with the help of The Maine Historic Preservation Commission and the Dry Stone Conservancy, Maine DOT made the decision to rehabilitate and restore the cribstone bridge. Committed to maintaining the unique granite substructure, MaineDOT sought to replace as few stones as possible and to match replacement stones with the most similar granite available. Extensive repairs included replacing missing and fractured stones, while also adjusting shifted and cantilevered stones. The rehabilitation spanned 2008 to 2011, resulting in the preservation of this one-of-a-kind bridge for future generations.

Winnegance, which was recently recognized by Sagadahoc Preservation for the same rehabilitation that garnered the Maine Preservation honors, was built in 1902 to supply necessary goods to local residents and quickly became a social center for the area.

Long outlasting the tidalpowered mills on the Kennebec River which employed many of the stores original patrons, the Winnegance General Store closed in 2009 with the building in dire need of repairs. In 2013, the store was listed on Maine Preservation’s Endangered Places List and soon thereafter was purchased by summer resident Jennifer Greene, with a vision of restoring the building. Through the tireless work of Tancred House Movers, Androscoggin Building and Remodeling, Houseworks LLC and Jung Restoration, the building underwent a major rehabilitation. Extensive repairs included temporarily moving the entire building to install a new foundation, fashioning cabinets from pumpkin pine salvaged on site, preserving the original beadboard walk-in cooler, reusing glass pendant fixtures from a 1916 Lewiston school, installing salvaged flooring, and restoring the badly deteriorated original windows. The result is a neighborhood gem with an upstairs apartment for rent and a flexible downstairs space that has returned to use as a general store.

The ceremony featured before and after photographs of the recognized projects, which are posted on the Maine Preservation website, at mainepreservation.org/honor-awards-2014.