I don't know for how long the building operated as a hotel. It was a residential building for many years with shops on the first floor. After operating as a hotel, it became known simply as the Improvement Building, named after the North Dakota Improvement Company that owned a great deal of real estate in downtown Fargo after the turn of the century (1900, not 2000).

The building was razed sometime in the 1960's, I believe.

The Stratford Hotel was located on First Avenue just east of Roberts Street, on the south side of the Avenue. It was situated between the old YMCA (on the corner of Roberts and First Avenue) and the Grand Theater. It sat where the now-closed Fargo Cinema Grill Theater now sits.

The architect of the building was M.E. Beebe. The building was 80x140 feet and five stories tall. It was advertised as absolutely fireproof (remember the fire of 1893?), built without "...a single wood joist, not a wood partition, not a wood floor or roof board, not a stick of wood or lath in the building from basement to roof."

In the second to fifth floors, the hotel offered 155 guest rooms, many with two and three rooms for families en suite, all with baths and closets, "not a few of which will be in the French style, with the toilet rooms separate from the baths." About 60 of the 155 rooms had baths, but all had hot and cold running water!