The Cathedral of Our Merciful Saviour in Faribault is the oldest cathedral in Minnesota. Built 1862–1869, it was the first church in the Episcopal Church in the United States of America designed as a cathedral. The architect was James Renwick, Jr., who also designed St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York, the Smithsonian Institution Building in Washington, D.C., and a very similar church, the Christ Church by the Sea in Colón, Panama. On August 10, 1979, the cathedral and its guild house were added to the National Register of Historic Places.