The sky's the limit: Steeplejack, now 74, has made living repairing churches in Georgia

Fred Franklin has been peering down at neighborhoods, cityscapes and the earth itself for more than 60 years, but when he's in Augusta, he's more often looking eye-level at a church steeple. Since the 1990s, Franklin has been the steeplejack of choice for several Augusta churches, from Sacred Heart Cultural Center to Saint Paul's Episcopal Church. Steeplejacks are responsible for maintaining and preserving those sky-high points of historical churches, which require special skills, equipment and courage.

Franklin, 74, has had that last component for as long as he can remember.

"In Boy Scouts, I'd rappel when I was 12," he said. "I was a big tree climber growing up, and then I started caving when I was in Boy Scouts. When I turned 16, I got a car, so we would go up to the caves and we would learn how to do vertical rope work. So that was my first real technical rope work."

One of his highest rappelling achievements was the 700-foot-tall Westin Peachtree Plaza in Atlanta. Another was Ellison's Cave in Pidgeon Mountain in northwest Georgia. At 12 miles long and over 1,000 feet deep, it's the 12th deepest cave in the U.S., according to Walker County's tourism website, WalkerRocks.com. But whatever the distance from the ground, these high points never stir him.

More local history: The Tubman legacy: From slaving in Augusta's cotton fields to leading Liberia

Franklin put his love of climbing and rope skills to work in 1988 when the Democratic National Convention came to Atlanta. A friend who did window washing at the CNN Center needed some help.

Then in 1996, he got a job doing renovation work on a church in Peachtree City, Georgia. Franklin said he made more money than he'd ever made at other high places, so he started Franklin Restoration in Covington and has been fixing up churches and other properties across the state ever since.

The secret to success

So how does Franklin manage to climb up and down churches with such ease?

"I'm respectful of (the heights), but they don't scare me. To me, it's like driving a car. You're doing 55 mph, you're going four feet from another car, all you gotta do is swerve five feet over and your dead," he said. When asked what he does feel while hanging hundreds of feet in the air, Franklin said "It's really a meditation, when you get out there."

When climbing a church, he first goes as high as possible inside the steeple. Then he feeds his rope, which can hold up to 10,000 pounds, out through the steeple, making it accessible to grab from the outside. He then goes back outside, climbs up the rope, lassos it around the steeple and ties it with a sliding bowline knot.

Where he takes his breaks may vary. In the case of his most recent job in Augusta at First Christian Church, he set up an area inside the steeple, about half-way to the top, with a fan to keep him cool since there's no air conditioning, a couple of folding chairs, and all of his gear at the ready. There's also a low gap in the wall where Franklin shimmies on and off of the outside ledge of the steeple.

For anyone concerned about how dangerous this sounds, Franklin is very careful. He said in his whole life, he's only ever fallen once and it was just an eight-foot drop.

Historic preservation is the key

His work at First Christian in the first week of August largely involved power washing and painting, but he's been trusted to work several times on the steeple.

Nila Wicker, who runs the church's renovations committee, said "Whenever we can get Fred for our restoration work on Emily Tubman's historic church, we know we have done our best for Augusta."

Tubman (1794-1885) was a leading community figure in civil rights and education. According to Historic Augusta, she used her husband's fortune to benefit many causes, like building First Christian Church and assisting her enslaved people with resettlement in Liberia.

Today in history: March 21, 1794: Emily Tubman, Augusta's great benefactor, is born

For Franklin, it's not just the climbing that he loves about this job, but also the historical preservation. During an Aug. 3 interview with The Augusta Chronicle, he looked around at the church's woodwork and marveled at how it was all made "by hand, with a hand saw, because there were no power tools back then. They had skills that we can't even comprehend," he said.

Franklin is still working on First Christian. After that, he has one more job in his native Covington, then he plans to retire. He's interested in staying in shape by getting back into rock climbing and similar activities that keep him in the air.

This article originally appeared on Augusta Chronicle: Skills, equipment and courage: 3 things needed to be a "steeplejack"