It was organized on 20 June 1917 at Vancouver Barracks, Washington around a cadre of personnel from the 14th Infantry Regiment.

However, the war ended before the unit could deploy overseas, and the 13th Division was completely demobilized by February 1919. the 44th Infantry was stationed at the Presidio of San Francisco, California, as of June 1919 as a separate regiment.

It was inactivated on 28 November 1921 at Schofield Barracks, and concurrently, its personnel and equipment were transferred to the 21st Infantry Regiment.

The fourth 44th Infantry Regiment was a Philippine Scout (PS) unit that was constituted in 1931 but that was not activated until 1946.

They were dissolved in 1920-21 when they were replaced by the creation of the permanent 31st, 43rd, 45th, and 57th Infantry Regiments, into which many of the surviving original scout companies were subsumed.

In 1921, many of the infantry and field artillery regiments were grouped together to form the U.S. Army's Philippine Division.

From this point onward, the Scouts became the U.S. Army's first line of land defense in the western Pacific.