Mas de Bernis (Colonia Agrícola San José) was founded in 1888 as an industrial agricultural colony dedicated to the cultivation and exploitation of new industrial agricultural products: flax, cotton, tobacco, etc. The innovation that this entailed received international recognition with the award of a diploma (‘Mention Honorable’) at the Universal Exhibition in Paris (1889) and two years later, in 1891, it also received the Gold Medal of the Círculo Mercantil Industrial de Tortosa.
