Latrobe is an unincorporated community in El Dorado County, California. Today a small community with a 2010 census population of 219, in its heyday it was an important railroad town with a population of 700 to 800.Latrobe was the terminus of the Placerville and Sacramento Rail Road. The name, bestowed by F. A. Bishop, chief engineer of the railroad, was in honor of Benjamin Henry Latrobe, II, chief engineer of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, America's first railroad.