Itmann's main residential section radiates uphill from the company store and office in several half-concentric rings. Each ring is at a different level, carved out of the steep mountainside. The first 120 houses were mostly one-story rectangular cottages or two-story, L-shaped dwellings. Here and there, one-story, hip-roofed bungalows helped break the monotony. Huntington's Ritter Lumber Company supplied the frame structures, completing them within a threemonth period in 1918. One hundred additional units, also Ritter prefabs, were added in 1919. Over the years additions to the houses have erased their uniformity, and each now wears its own stamp of individuality.
West Virginia 16, the Coal Heritage Trail, continues east from Itmann, through Mullens, into Raleigh County, paralleling the tortuous course of the Guyandotte River. An almost continuous string of houses lines the highway in such towns as Blackeagle, Corinne, and Allen Junction. All were formerly coal company towns, and their general appearance proves that the 1941 description of Wyoming County quoted at the beginning of this chapter still applies.