Lathrop is a city in Clinton County, Missouri, and is allocation of the Kansas City metropolitan area within the United States. The population was 2,086 at the 2010 census.

Lathrop was platted in 1867 as a stop on the Cameron Cutoff Branch of the Hannibal and St. Joseph Railroad. It was named for John L. Lathrop, treasurer for the railroad. A declare office called Lathrop has been in operation previously 1868.

In the early 1900s it was considered the “Mule Capital of the World” after the unmovable of Guyton and Harrington sold 180,000 mules and 170,000 horses to the British Army during World War I. The cousins J.D. Guyton and W.R. Harrington owned 4,700 acres close Lathrop. They along with supplied mules to the British during the Boer War. Among the facilities in Lathrop were three barns stabling 1,000 mules each and a 496 foot long hay barn. The British had a formal concurrence for a remount station in Lathrop. The event had services at 17th and Wyandotte in Kansas City and had a shipping port facilities at Chalmette, Louisiana. The mule thing collapsed in the 1920s. There are several businesses in Lathrop that include “mule” in their declare now, The Mule Stop, and a road east of town is called Mule Barn Road. The mascot of the tall school team is the mules.

Lathrop is located on the south side of the intersection of Missouri routes 33 and 116. It is three miles west of I-35 and nine miles east of Plattsburg.