Unalaska, Alaska
The cathedral was founded and designed by Fr. Innocent Veniaminov, a Siberian-born priest who had worked at Unalaska, Alaska for ten years, where he had designed a two-domed church and also established a school. He designed the cathedral in the Russian ecclesiastical architectural style, for which it has been noted as one of the finest examples of its kind in North America. The foundation stone was laid in 1844, and the cathedral was completed on the 20th of November 1848. The Russian-American Company funded the project. The bells were forged in Alaska, and the clock fixed in the bell tower was made by Innocent. In 1867, Alaska was sold to the United States; Army Major General Jefferson C. Davis arrived in Sitka with several hundred soldiers who pillaged the cathedral, as well as local businesses and residences.