Latham is a small town in the Wheatbelt region of Western Australia

Western Australia

Western Australia is a state of Australia, occupying the entire western third of the Australian continent. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west, the Great Australian Bight and Indian Ocean to the south, the Northern Territory to the north-east and South Australia to the south-east...

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The town is named after a large granite

Granite

Granite is a common and widely occurring type of intrusive, felsic, igneous rock. Granite usually has a medium- to coarse-grained texture. Occasionally some individual crystals are larger than the groundmass, in which case the texture is known as porphyritic. A granitic rock with a porphyritic...

 rock, Latham Rock, that is located close to the townsite. The rock was named after an early pastoralist in the region who established a watering place for stock being droved through the area.

The townsite originated as a result of the planned construction of the railway from Wongan Hills

Wongan Hills, Western Australia

Wongan Hills is a town in the Shire of Wongan-Ballidu, in the Wheatbelt region of Western Australia. The town is approximately 182 km north of the State capital Perth, at an altitude of 286 metres....

 to Mullewa

Mullewa, Western Australia

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 in 1913. The Public Works department decided that the area would be suitable as a railway station and a townsite. The railway opened for service in 1915 and the townsite was gazetted in 1917.