RALEIGH, N.C. — Efforts to unravel the mysterious fate of North Carolina’s fabled Lost Colony could benefit after a preservation group took out its first-ever loan to buy a coastal tract where some colonists may have resettled hundreds of years ago.

The 16th century English colonists who vanished after being left in the New World have piqued popular imagination and intrigued historians for centuries. One North Carolina community is even holding a Lost Colony Festival this weekend. The preservation of land linked to their disappearance could enable future researchers to shed new light on the historic riddle.

The 1,000-acre property is so special historically and ecologically that the North Carolina Coastal Land Trust decided to take a risk and borrow $5.3 million for a real estate deal, said Lee Leidy, attorney and Northeast Region director for the trust. It’s the first time in 26 years that the trust has done so. The trust plans to turn the property over to the state, eventually, preserving it for future study.

“It was a veritable time capsule of important historical events,” Leidy said.

In addition to being the place where historians now believe some of the colonists resettled, the land in rural Bertie County has been home to an Indian village and to the plantation of Gov. Thomas Pollock, who served two stints as governor in the early 1700s. The land, which includes 3.5 miles along Salmon Creek, is important ecologically, with flood plain forests of cypress-gum swamp and bottomland hardwood forest.