Winnie the Pooh is originally named after the Canadian city of Winnipeg in Manitoba. During World War I, Canadian soldiers on their way to Europe stopped in White River, Ontario, where a lieutenant named Harry Colebourn bought a small female black bear cub for $20 from a hunter who had killed its mother. He named her 'Winnipeg', after his hometown of Winnipeg, or 'Winnie' for short. He took the bear with him and eventually gave her to the London Zoo in 1919 where she lived until 1934.
During her life at the zoo, Winnie was a very popular attraction. The writer A. A. Milne often brought his son Christopher Robin to see the bear. She was his favourite animal and he named his own teddy bear Winnie. The name Pooh originally belonged to a swan. 'The visits to the zoo and Christopher’s fondness for animals inspired A. A. Milne to write a children’s story about their adventures. The first Winnie-the-Pooh' book was published on October 14th, 1926. After acquiring the rights, Disney brought Pooh to film in 1966. In 1989, people from White River got permission from Walt Disney Productions for the right to build a statue of the bear.
