Lathrop, MO

Lathrop is a Clinton County city about 40 miles north of Kansas City and a few miles west of I-35, with 2,271 residents in the 2020 census. It was laid out in 1867 as a Hannibal and St. Joseph Railroad stop, chosen for fresh-water springs that could serve steam locomotives. The rail line made Lathrop a shipping town, and the city's older grid still carries that straight-to-the-tracks feel. Lathrop R-II schools, City Hall on Oak Street, and the parks sit inside a town that remains tied to Clinton County farms and the Kansas City region.

Then there is the mule story. Guyton and Harrington's horse-and-mule operation grew into a major Lathrop employer, shipping animals through town for the Boer War and World War I and earning the nickname "Mule Capital of the World." The railroad branch ended in 1962, but Lathrop still leans into that history through the annual Living History Festival, car and tractor shows, model-engine gatherings, and July fireworks. It is a small railroad city with an unusually large animal-trade chapter in its past.