The business of Eureka: A labor of love and tenacity

Running a small business in Eureka County is in many ways a labor of love, and most likely, will not make one rich. Many small business owners in the area hold down other jobs or juggle several small businesses at once to make it work.

One example of that is Veronica Tognoni. She is a real estate agent with Fathom Realty, runs a tire shop, Eureka Outdoor & Tires, with her husband, Antonio, and spends about two days a week as both a dental hygienist and office manager at the new Eureka Dental Clinic. Antonio travels often for his primary job as a construction superintendent for a Fallon-based company. On top of this, he provides local contracting services and helps run the tire shop.

This jack-of-all-trades approach isn’t a choice as much as a necessity. The juggling act is the blueprint for survival for many in the community. 

“A lot of the business owners I do find have two jobs,” she said. “A lot of business owners are farming hay, running cattle, but that’s their second job. They work for the county or school district… their main job.”

Each of Tognoni’s roles reveals a different challenge and reward of the small-town economy.

Niche business

The tire shop is a lesson in rural business realities. The Tognonis quickly learned that in a town this size, full-time hours for a niche service aren’t sustainable. 

“Being there full time, people aren’t just going to, like, walk in,” she explained.

They also learned that the type of customer varied widely. Locals, particularly in agriculture and mining, had a real need for heavy-duty tires. But a large part of the “immediate need” came from travelers passing through on Highway 50.

“They would urgently say, ‘Oh, I have a tire that’s blown…I just need to get by till I get to Elko or till I get to Ely,’” Tognoni recalled. “So you’re charging, you know, maybe like 25 bucks for a tire patch, which takes your whole day just to be there for one person to stop by.”

She felt good about helping, but it wasn’t a viable business model. Now, they refer most traveler repairs to other local shops that offer more services and instead focus on scheduling locals — especially for the unique agricultural tires — all in one day.

A public-private partnership

Tognoni’s work at the Eureka Dental Clinic, operated by Gallagher Dental Care, is a case study in community collaboration. The clinic is open for the dentist one day a week, while Tognoni works about two days handling hygiene and all office management, including training a new local assistant.

She is clear that this service, which has been a boon to residents, could not exist without public support. Eureka County provides the building and the expensive equipment. 

“If they didn’t do that, there’s no way a dentist would be able to come out of pocket…and make that back quite yet,” she said.

The clinic’s growth has been “a weird, natural, slow progression,” which Tognoni is thankful for.

“That would have actually been really overwhelming,” she said, if everyone had called on the first day. Now, as they approach their six-month benchmark, they are seeing their first recurring patients and can better gauge the community’s needs.

But success brings new challenges. The small, two-chair space creates privacy issues. They hope to work with the county to add a third chair, which would make the dentist’s single day more productive and help ensure he continues to make the trip. Despite these hurdles, the impact is undeniable. 

“There’s been a lot of people that couldn’t drive,” Tognoni said, “so they’ve had a lack of access that they’ve now been able to get.”

The real estate ‘hobby’

Tognoni’s work as a real estate agent began not as a career move, but as a quest for knowledge. After she and her husband bought their first house during the 2008 recession and saw the market drop, she felt powerless. 

“I just feel like I didn’t know a lot, and I’m like, I need to learn more,” she said.

When she moved to Eureka, she finally had time to take the classes and found there was no local realtor. 

“I was not looking to do it full time or even for other people, really,” she said. “At first, it was kind of just for my own knowledge.”

Though she is constantly on call, answering questions for people who may or may not ever become paid clients, the monetary reward is minimal. 

“When we sold our house in Sparks… I had to pay the buyer’s agent $23,000 in commission.” She paused, “And I’m like, wow, that’s maybe what I make in a year doing real estate here.”

In Eureka, transactions might be for $50,000 or $200,000, meaning she has to do “sometimes 10 transactions to equal what one realtor does in the city.”

She calls it her “bonus money,” driven more by a desire to help people and “being in the know.”

Property challenges

As a realtor, Tognoni is on the front lines of Eureka’s property and business challenges. When potential clients ask about opening a business, she has to be blunt: “It is risky…Sometimes you have to have a multi-business.”

Housing is an even bigger hurdle. She has clients who sold their homes and had to leave town because there was nowhere else to go. Many existing homes need significant repairs, making them ineligible for traditional loans. Building new is also a financial challenge. 

“It’s more expensive to build and bring everything from…other places,” she said, “and then you’re going to get less turnaround value.”

It’s also challenging to maintain existing historic buildings, something longtime resident Garney Damele has made part of her life’s mission. Damele, who runs nonprofit Eureka Restoration Enterprise, focuses on “beautifying downtown [Eureka] by preserving historical buildings and fostering new businesses on Main Street.” 

“She does really well with Eureka restoration,” Tognoni said. “A lot of people would just tear stuff down, as it costs far more to restore it. So it’s neat she’s doing that.”

One building at a time

Damele, who retired after 30 years with the county assessor’s office, said she was motivated by watching other rural Nevada towns crumble. 

“I’ve always thought Eureka has like the best Main Street in Nevada with our old buildings,” she said. Her goal is simple: “You restore an old building that would provide space for a new business to come in and open up and keep our main street going.”

Her first major project was the building that now houses the Eureka Depot coffee shop, smoothie and juice bar and bakery, and a full satellite pharmacy, Economy Drug. Eureka Restoration purchased the building in late 2018 and began renovations. The effort has been a success with the coffee shop and pharmacy both welcomed additions to the community. It’s the first walk-in pharmacy Eureka has seen in decades. 

Even though the building is now occupied, the work is never done. 

“It’s a forever type thing that will need a few things here and there,” she said.

Her current project is the historic Masonic Lodge, built in 1880. The Masons, who acquired it in the 1940s, still hold their monthly meetings in the fully-furnished basement. Damele’s nonprofit is working to restore the main-street level, which has “very, very poor physical condition” in the back room. This includes repairing rotted floor beams that a previous, temporary truss system had tried to remedy.

This project highlights her biggest challenge: funding. Damele relies heavily on grants from the State Historic Preservation Office, but those grants are typically for government or nonprofit-owned buildings. 

“A lot of the buildings in Eureka on Main Street are privately owned,” she explained, often by old families to whom the buildings mean a lot. Her annual Wine Walk fundraiser is a “huge support” from locals, businesses and the mining industry, but it’s not enough. 

“If you’re going to restore a building, you’re talking hundreds of thousands of dollars,” she said.

Reward beyond the bottom line

With so many financial and logistical hurdles, why do it? For both Damele and Tognoni, the answer has little to do with money.

Damele is driven by a deep-seated belief in her community and the importance of preserving it. She plans to keep going “until I don’t have any other doors opened.”

For Tognoni, the “always-on” lifestyle is a constant negotiation. She recalled a recent family cruise where she “had to pay all this money for Wi-Fi that barely worked.” 

But the life that this hard work affords outweighs the costs.

“I am enjoying that my husband and I can have some flexibility being our own boss,” Tognoni said. 

More than that, it’s the environment. “We do just love the nature and small town and the school district for our kids. We definitely feel like it’s safer.”

The reward is in the quality of life, not the quantity of dollars.