Twentieth century urban history in Saudi Arabia’s East is tightly linked to the growth of the oil industry and therefore to the activities of the Arabian American Oil Company (Aramco) in developing the local urban communities. Existing historical and social studies univocally ascribe the ‘modern’ achievements of the early phase of oil development in the 1950s and 1960s, namely the building of an urban infrastructure, education and health system, to corporate activities. In fact, the oil company is presented as the dominant, if not the only, actor stipulating urban development, thus implementing the ‘modernization’ project of the Al Saud (Yizraeli 2012). Hence, oil urbanism is framed as mere product of corporate and state interests, oddly deprived of the role assumed by urban communities or individuals in this process (Seccombe and Lawless 1987; Thamir al-‘Ahmari 2006). In contrast to such unidirectional understanding of urban growth under the aegis of oil, this paper focusses on commercial entrepreneurs, government officials and civil servants in the oil towns Dammam and al-Khobar and the ways in which they fomented oil urbanism and ‘urbaneness’ from the 1940s to the early 1970s. Local merchants and investors did not only seek government and company loans and thus realized the introduction of new technologies and necessary infrastructure, such as an electric grit or medical services. They also extended their scope of activity into urban governance and culture, where they monitored the urban socio-political situation and exerted considerable influence over urban life and development. At times, members of prominent business families such as the al-Gosaibi or the al-Dossary acted as social entrepreneurs or advocates of less privileged urban groups, possibly nourishing an older role within the urban communities. Government officials and civil servants of the municipality, on the other hand, seemed to have used their leverage as intermediates between the urban communities and the state to promote specific social or political agendas, backed up by an evolving public opinion. By examining documents of the municipal and provincial administration, reports compiled by foreign monitors such as Aramco’s government relations department and the US consulate, local newspapers, published memoirs, and oral history interviews, the paper will retrace forms of civic engagement among these groups and locate the formal and informal spaces and boundaries that defined these activities.