The fame of Mexican pearls increased even further when an important development took place in the Island of "Espíritu Santo" (near the City of La Paz), in the southern part of Lower California (Baja California Sur). This development took form as a company founded by Medical Doctor Gastón Vivès, who begun the world's first commercial pearl oyster culture farm, this in the year of 1893. In his farm he was able to grow some 8 to 10 million black-lipped pearl oysters (Pinctada mazatlanica) and employ over 1,000 workers. He was very successful at collecting "spat" (baby oysters), rearing and developing his black-lipped oysters for several years, and then harvesting them. The company's main product was mother-of-pearl shell, but he was able to obtain many natural pearls (non-cultured) inside his oysters (an estimated 9-14% of his oysters grew natural pearls).

This Pearl Oyster farm was considered to be the first true commercial pearl farm in the world, and scientists from France and the United States visited and documented its operation (Leon Diguet of the Museum d' Histoire Naturelle, Paris, and the Charles Townsend of the Museum of Natural History, NYC). At that the same time, Japan's Kokichi Mikimoto was making great advances towards the production of cultured pearls, but  Dr. Vivés did not want to produce a substitute for the natural pearl, that had never been his objective.

Unfortunately, in 1914 the pearl farm was destroyed and the company's safe was looted during the attack of the Constitutionalist Army to the city of La Paz. Once the Mexican Revolution was over, Mr. Vivés tried -in vain- to obtain an indemnification to his losses and rebuild the pearl farm. This unique and successful attempt at growing pearl oysters, the first commercial venture in the field in the entire planet, closed a chapter of hope in Mexico. After the destruction of the "Compañía Criadora de Concha y Perla", pearls had to be obtained -once more- by the means of nude diver armadas.

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