On this day, July 24, in 1897

The US Army’s 25 Infantry Bicycle Corps pedaled into St. Louis from Montana after riding for 40 days as part of a military experiment. The 25 Infantry has been formed in 1869 as one of four African-American military units stationed west of the Mississippi, although their commander was always white. For this mission, 23 of the unit’s men volunteered to bicycle 1900 miles across every terrain imaginable to test the efficiency of bicycles in real military situations. The experiment proved that a bicycle corps could travel twice as fast as cavalry and infantry under the same conditions and at one-third the cost. In the end, the army decided not to establish a permanent bicycle corps.