A few people still live in Skibo, MN but back in the day Skibo was once the site of a large logging operation. A yard with several tracks located just north of the Saint Louis River once supported pulp storage and loading operations. A large saw mill was located a few miles upstream and was served by a spur that branched off at Skibo. This saw mill cut timber supports that were used in underground mining. The underground mines played out in the first half of the 20th century, so cut timber was no longer needed. Logging was done by the 1920's, which also reduced the importance of Skibo. In fact, iron mining was all but done by the 1960s, and this branch of the DM&IR was heading towards abandonment. A new process for concentrating low grade iron ore into Taconite pellets brought a resurgance to the mining industry and is the primary cargo being hauled over this former D&IR line, with smaller quantities of limestone being hauled back to the Taconite plants to be used in ore processing being a secondary cargo.
Skibo was named after Skibo Castle, the summer home of Andrew Carnegie on the north shore of Dornoch Firth in the north of Scotland.
