Nuestra Señora de las Nieves (Our Lady of the Snows) was built between 1873 and 1976, entirely of stone sourced from nearby Sogamoso's Pedregal district.

It borders the municipalities of Paipa and Tibasosa in the north, Iza and Pesca in the south, Sogamoso in the east, and Tuta and Toca to the west.

The local community had organized its social structure around a hilltop site subdivided into a number districts that provided multiple vantage points.

[6] The early Spanish chronicler, the bishop Lucas Fernández de Piedrahita, believed that the Muisca Confederation of the highlands originally founded its state in the eleventh or twelfth centuries, centred on Hunza, capital of the ruler Hunzahúa, now the city of Tunja.

[7] Some seventy years before the arrival of the Spaniards, the Altiplano region had separated into four independent Muisca states: Hunza, Bacatá, Tundama, and Iraca or Suamox (present day Sogamoso).

These tribes, brought together by cultural affinity, geographic proximity or shared military and defensive interests, organized under a common legal and political framework and sovereign leadership.

[11] Tradition held that the sovereign ruler was to be elected from the settlements of Firavitoba and Tobasá alone, in strict alternation and to the exclusion of all other population centres.

It was the exploratory expedition led by Gonzalo Jiménez de Quesada which rapidly overcame the Muisca states of the Altiplano and colonized the region.

The expedition suffered heavy losses from disease, and several times stopped for periods of weeks or months to rest and regain strength along the way.

[15] By 1537 they had explored as far as the site of the future city of Bogotá and the beginning of the eastern plains (Llanos Orientales) of the Orinoco watershed, covering much of the Muisca's Altiplano territory, including its salt and emerald mining areas.

By August 1537 they had seized the treasure of the Tunja zaque, a month later they conquered Suamox, and shortly after that killed the Bacatá zipa and his successor.

[16] While the chroniclers of the rapid conquest and colonization of the region did not record the wars against its inhabitants, or the mistreatment of their rulers, in great detail, archival documents held in Seville and Bogotá trace the course of events.

In 1547, one of the soldiers of the German adventurer Nikolaus Federmann, Luis de Sanabria, had been granted administrative responsibility over the territories of Firavitoba, Cormechoque and Sichacá in the form of an encomienda, so becoming the first encomendero over the communities there.

Its administrative centre and audiencia were in Bogotá, which joined Lima and Mexico City as a major seat of Spanish authority in the New World.

The Jesuits occupied the Hacienda La Compañia estate in Firavitoba until their expulsion from the possessions of the Spanish crown in the Americas and the Philippines in 1767.

[19] The indigenous inhabitants were transferred to Nobsa to serve out the remainder of their encomienda obligations, but were returned before the popular uprising against the Spanish authorities in the Viceroyalty of New Granada known as the Revolt of the Comuneros, from May through October of that year, although they lost some of their land.

Several years after the revolt and Colombian Declaration of Independence on July 20, 1810, in Santa Fé de Bogotá came the Spanish reconquest of New Granada in 1815–1816, under General Pablo Morillo.

Although several public primary schools were established in Firavitoba before 1832, during the Republican era the importance of the municipality diminished and it passed largely unremarked in national affairs.

Father Ignacio Ramón Avella proposed the building of a new and imposing church in the town, Nuestra Señora de las Nieves (Our Lady of the Snows).

When the time came for the raising of the walls, most of Firatoba's residents participated in a day-long expedition to fetch material for the scaffolding, crossing Lake Tota to the village of Bogüita for the timbers.

The Pro-Luz Company of Firavitoba was established at the beginning of 1953 to install electric lighting in the municipality, successfully implementing a project that dated back to 1936.

In 1962, the national Minister of Health and other government figures came to Firavitoba for the laying of the foundation stone of the clinic, on the southwestern side of the School Concentration.

Two gold and green interlaced ears of wheat top the shield, the same motif repeating around its blue border to symbolize fertility of the land and agriculture in the municipality.

At the beginning of 1989, land was granted to national telecommunications company Telecom on the site of a demolished children's school north of the main square, to build local headquarters.

The local community organized fundraising events, which included two festivals, two bazaars, and a beauty contest, and several companies and individuals also made donations.

[26][27] In 2005, work began under government contract to surface the Firavitoba-Vargas Swamp road which, if completed, would link to Paipa and reduce travel distance to Tunja.