Jefferson Lines

Jefferson Lines was founded in 1919 during the early days of motorcoach travel. The company's name originates from the Jefferson Highway, a north–south route in the early National Auto Trail system that once ran from Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, south to New Orleans, Louisiana. Jefferson expanded south of Kansas City in 1966, when it purchased Crown Coach.

By 1990, the company was believed to be the second-largest intercity bus company in the country after Continental Trailways was bought by Greyhound Lines. Jefferson went through bankruptcy in 1990 and was sold to a group led by Norwest Equity Partners. Charlie Zelle acquired a majority of Norwest's stake in 1998. Jefferson acquired the scheduled service of Jack Rabbit Lines in the Dakotas in 2000.

Jefferson Lines was the defendant in a 1994 Supreme Court case, Oklahoma Tax Commission v. Jefferson Lines. The state of Oklahoma filed a claim in Jefferson Lines' bankruptcy process, arguing that it was entitled to sales tax revenues on the full value of interstate bus tickets that were sold in Oklahoma. The court ruled in favor of the state, effectively overturning the precedent that it had set in 1948 in Central Greyhound Lines, Inc. v. Mealy. The Central Greyhound Lines decision had allowed states to levy sales taxes on interstate bus tickets, but only on the value of the ticket proportional to the mileage traveled within that state.

Intercity bus lines underwent many changes in the 2000s decade, after Greyhound Lines entered bankruptcy and shed a number of its routes. Jefferson Lines has taken over operation of many former Greyhound routes and improved ridership significantly on some of them. The service to Winnipeg was cut back to Grand Forks, North Dakota, on October 7, 2010.

On May 15, 2013, Jefferson Lines expanded its service to the Minnesota Iron Range, including to Hibbing, where Greyhound Lines had been founded nearly a century earlier.