], it sits on Cathedral Hill overlooking downtown Saint Paul and features a distinctive copper-clad dome.

On March 25, 2009, it was designated as the National Shrine of the Apostle Paul by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops.

[3] The first church building in what became the Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis was a small log chapel built at the urging of Father Lucien Galtier.

Father Augustin Ravoux later enlarged the structure, and when Joseph Crétin was appointed as the bishop of the newly established Diocese of St. Paul in July 1851, the log chapel became the first cathedral.

Crétin immediately started to build a larger church to serve the fast-growing population of St. Paul.

Construction of the building, at the corner of St. Peter and Sixth Streets in Downtown St. Paul, started in 1854 and was completed in 1858, having been delayed by the Panic of 1857 and Crétin's death.

Charles H.F. Smith (the head of the Finance Committee) and Alpheus Beede Stickney, two businessmen in St. Paul, purchased the land and donated it to the archdiocese.

Human-sized carved angels stand on both sides of the organ case and a statue of Saint Cecilia, patron saint of music, stands on top of the central organ case dome, directly below the rose window.

Heroic size marble statues of the four evangelists, sculpted by John Angel, are set into the niches of the piers in the four corners of the church.

The cathedral also has six chapels dedicated to the patron saints of the European ethnic groups that settled the area around the city: St. Anthony for the Italians, St. John the Baptist for the French Canadians, St. Patrick for the Irish, St. Boniface for the Germans, Saints Cyril and Methodius for the Slavs; and St. Therese of Lisieux for the missionaries.